Okay, good morning. It is, what is today's date? March 24th? Yes, it is. March 24th. I'd like to go ahead and call the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. Before we get started, we'll have an invocation from Jenna Safford, who's the Spiritual Assembly of Baha'i of Gainesville. If you all could please join me for the invocation. Is she here? Yes, she's here. Oh, yeah, there she is. Okay. Come forward and give us your thoughts, and then if you all could join me for the Pledge of Allegiance after the invocation. Thank you so much. Good morning. I'm joining Jenna. My name is Iron Gamble. We gather here today as individuals with different perspectives, experiences, and beliefs, yet united by a shared purpose, to serve our community with integrity, wisdom, and care. May we approach this meeting with open minds, respectful hearts, and a willingness to listen as much as we speak. Guide our thoughts and our decisions so that they reflect fairness, compassion, and a commitment to the greater good. May we be mindful that the choices made here have a real and lasting impact on the lives of those we represent. Grant us clarity in our discussions, patience in the moments of a disagreement, and the courage to do what is right, even when it's not easy. Let our work be rooted in respect, collaboration, and a genuine desire to build a stronger, more inclusive community. And now we're going to have a prayer from Jenna. O thou kind Lord, this gathering is turning to thee. These hearts are radiant with thy love. These minds and spirits are exhilarated by the message of thy glad tidings. O God, let this American democracy become glorious in spiritual degrees, even as it has aspired to material degrees, and render this just government victorious. Convirm this revered nation to upraise the standard of the oneness of humanity, to propagate the most great peace, to become thereby most glorious and praiseworthy among all the nations of the world. O God, this American nation is worthy of thy favors, and is deserving of thy mercy. Make it precious and near to thee through thy bounty and bestowal. Habduba. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Okay. All right, Commissioner. So, Mr. Manager, do we have any changes to the agenda? No, Mr. Chair. No changes. Okay. And so I'll entertain a motion. Move approval of the regular and consent agenda. Second. Motion and a second to approve the agenda as published. Any discussion on the agenda? If you'll come forward, give us your thoughts. Introduce yourself. Good morning, Mr. Plunk. Good morning. I am coming forward to call out item P.7.2, if it's numbered the same way on this morning's edition. It's about tiny homes at Scottish Inn. And I, oh, she's not here. I'm inspired by Commissioner Prizia to ask about this amount. I saw how she responded talking about a gigantic planning grant for another bit of work in your meeting last week. So, $788,000 for site work toward tiny homes at Scottish Inn. Now, I am particularly, I'm not speaking for Alachua County Housing Authority, but my connection there makes me real concerned with this. Is that, how close does that $788,000 get us to moving people in? Is this just another giant tranche of money for everything on paper and nothing? I want to know something's happening in the ground for that huge amount of money. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Plunk. I actually asked about that one during my agenda review for 29 units. There's a pretty significant cost next to the 13th Street, but we'll have TJ come up and speak to that before we adopt it. Anyone else? Okay. TJ, do you want to give a, TJ or Tommy, do you want to give a quick overview? Tommy. Procurement Manager, TJ White. This is just for the site walk chair. This is what they're doing, they're turning into some road work. They're also getting the site prepared for electrical and other things of that nature to prepare the tiny homes that will be put on there. If you need any more detail about the actual work being done, we can get back with Travis from Facilities and Claudia and CSS. So that's what that's about. All right. Thank you. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah, go ahead. Does that include the connection fees to GRU? No, it does not. It does not. And the basis, as I understand, and Claudia would probably be better to answer this than Travis in terms of the arrangements and what being permanent supportive housing or what the condition is, but they will be individually metered is my understanding. And so maybe Claudia can address that part. Claudia Tuck, Community Support Services Director. The $750,000 is simply this infrastructure that's required. FDOT is making us make modifications to the median and turn lane, and it's the underground utilities. The project, as Mr. Crosby said, will be for workforce housing. It will be permanent housing. Individuals will have a lease, and then we're proposing it to be for workforce housing. Metered connections will be individual to each unit, and it will become later. So the big expense is actually on the road, not on our property. It's both. It's both. It's both. But, I mean, that's a big thing to do the curb. It was a surprise. Okay. And with 29 units, it's about $30,000 per unit. It's a lot. It is a lot, but if you take into account that we're having to do work on the main road, that's actually less than I would have thought it could have been. Yeah. But we had a 30-minute discussion about this one item on the agenda. I just wanted to say it for the public. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Crosby. All right. Any further discussions on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That motion is unanimous. We have an agenda. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. So the first item is the announcement. Mr. Sexton, you're recognized. Welcome. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you can see on our screens one of the best events that we do every year that is an absolute blast is the Santa Fe Springs Celebration. This year it is April 11th at Post Springs Park from 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. There's live music. There's springside yoga, springs education, kayaks, live paintings, so many activities, and mermaids, of course. So we encourage our residents to come out. The event is free and open to the public, and we hope our residents will join us. Also, Mr. Chair, I wanted to bring a couple of things to your attention. If you go to our website, the item on the left of the screen where burn ban just was there, now Sense and Sensibility, those are our spotlights, and there are four items there now. You can download our My Alachua app and stay up to speed on what's going on at the county. There's the Cuscovilla Camp registration and open house, and I did want to highlight that. For those of you that are making plans for your kids, Camp Cuscovilla is one of the finest camps in Alachua County, one of the most affordable camps in Alachua County. And if you go to our website, it's featured on the spotlight. All the details for registering your kids for that camp are there. And they are actually holding an open house on Saturday, March 28th, from 10 a.m. to noon, if you want to go and see what that camp is all about. It's truly incredible, so we hope folks will do that. And, Mr. Chair, those are the announcements. Thank you, Mr. Sexton. Okay, next up, Madam Clerk, are the recognitions? Yes. Can I get approval of recognitions? Move approval of the recognitions. Second. I motion a second to approve the recognitions. Any public to speak to the motion? Hearing none, back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay, first one up. First one up, the Alachua County Receipt of Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. Okay, and I think we've got Mr. Crosby here, who has left the dice to go down to present. Along with all the OMP folks, the hard workers. Yep. Who's doing that one? They're doing it. And then we'll do the... Good morning, commissioners. My name is Dallas Lee. I'm the vice president of the local chapter of the Government Finance Officers Association. And it's my pleasure to be here today on behalf of the GFOA to present the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award to Alachua County. The Distinguished Budget Presentation Award program is designed to encourage governments to prepare budget documents of the highest quality for the benefit of your citizens and all others with a vital interest in the budget process. This award recognizes governments that produce budget documents of the highest quality, documents that not only serve as financial plans, but also help communicate priorities, build trust, and promote accountability. To earn this award, the county had to substantially meet the program's demanding criteria, which incorporate the guidelines of the National, State, and Local Budgeting Council. This award is the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting, and receiving it represents a significant achievement by the county. In addition to receiving this award, Alachua County's budget also earns special recognition for the long-range operating financial plan, and for the strategic goals and strategy sessions. Special recognition is awarded when all three reviewers give the highest possible score in a category. This is not the first time Alachua County has received this honor. In fact, today's presentation marks the 41st consecutive year the county has received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. That kind of consistency does not come easily. It does not happen by chance. It reflects professionalism, commitment, and the hard work of many individuals, including Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby, Budget Manager Maureen Ricciatelli, and the entire budget team. It also reflects the leadership of the county commission and your county management staff. The Government Finance Officers Association hopes this recognition will serve not only as a celebration of Alachua County's achievement, but also as an example that encourages others to pursue the high standards set in their own budget documents. Therefore, it is my privilege on behalf of the Government Finance Officers Association to present Alachua County with this Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. Congratulations. Okay. Tommy, you want to say a few words? I know you don't want to do that. Well, I just want to say quickly thank you to all of you. So, you know, the budget isn't the most fun part of our job, but it is the most important part of our job. And the fact that they make it clear, easy to understand, they're always there to answer questions. As soon as I have any line item issue, they're there in a heartbeat to answer questions. And the way that they've produced documents that help the public understand through our website and through Sense and Sensibility in partnership with Mark. The recent presentations around how the budget changes might be impacting us. I just really appreciate the due diligence and the time and energy that they put into not just making the budget work, but making the budget easy to understand. So, thank you all very much. Thank you. Commissioner Alford. Commissioner. Yeah, I wanted to say something similar, but when I talk about our county, one of the first things that I usually talk about is the fact that I'm just so proud of how, you know, I hate to say the word conservative, but we're fiscally conservative in so many ways. And, I mean, seriously, we do a really good job financially. But, anyway, thank you. Well, I mean, I would just add, you know, we talk about what's important, but we fund the community's priorities. And between the clerk and the OMB staff, they are, you know, their shoes squeak, and I think ours do, too, as far as making sure that the taxpayer's dollars are spent transparently and efficiently. And, yeah, I don't really use that word conservative because I don't know what the conservatives can serve many times, but I know that financially we are quite good at using the taxpayer's money. Okay, so thank you all, OMB. And next up, Madam Clerk. Next up, we have a presentation of a proclamation recognizing March 29th through April 1st as Zero Waste Week in Alachua County, Florida. All right, we've got Commissioner Alford. All right, this is probably the shortest one today, but one of the most powerful. I'm reading a proclamation declaring March 29th through April 4th as Zero Waste Week in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas Zero Waste is a system where nothing is wasted and resources stay in use. And whereas Zero Waste is a system the community is collectively working towards. And whereas the Repurpose Project, Life in Plastic, and Zero Waste Gainesville want to encourage valuing the earth and its resources and instilling circular systems of reuse. And whereas we celebrate the community working together to reduce consumption, reuse and repurpose and recycle. And whereas we are committed to reducing food waste at the source and composting the rest. And whereas we invite all Alachua County citizens to join us in seven days of Zero Waste Education, events, and solutions. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim March 29th through April 4th as Zero Waste Week in Alachua County, Florida. Amanda, duly proclaimed this 24th day of March, A.D. 2026, and signed by all the appropriate people. And welcome, Amanda, and thank you for all of the work that you have done and continue to do in our community. It's made a real difference. It's so much fun to, when people come into our community, to share with them all of the really cool options that we have. Whether it's our own LaVita Brown's Waste Transfer Station, or whether it's the Repurpose Project, or all the many things. But would you like to say a few words? All right. Yes. Thank you all for this proclamation. I just have a few words to say. Thank you for recognizing Zero Waste Week for this proclamation. We are very excited for the week and have many events planned. But first, I want to recognize what Zero Waste is and how essential it is to work towards it without worrying about perfection. Zero Waste is about creating efficient circular system for resources use, just as in nature. It's about creating systems where everything is reusable, recyclable, or compostable. And if it's not, we should redesign it to fit into Zero Waste systems. There are many things we can all do to help us reach our Zero Waste goals. We can use reusable items, such as bags, bottles, jars, utensils, and cups. We can also buy local food and reduce food waste by eating leftovers, cooking what we have in our home, and rotating our food so we eat the oldest items first. But we really need broader Zero Waste systems created at the municipal level where residents and businesses participate because it's just the new normal and it's what we do. But overall, we need everyone in the community actively working towards Zero Waste, and I'm excited about the county's support for this. And I want to take a minute to thank the Zero Waste Week partners, as I mentioned many of the Zero Waste Week events. And our partners are really essential for creating the fantastic events we have. So I'm just going to run through those for the seven days. So on Sunday, March 29th, we have a cleanup event hosted by Keep Alachua County Beautiful. We have a bike blowout event, which is a repair event at Lucy's Downtown. And this is still Sunday. We have three events. We have our Confronting Clutter Workshop with Simplify Home Organizing, and that workshop's at Cypress and Grove. And on Monday, March 30th, we recognize the United Nations International Day of Zero Waste. And also on Monday, March 30th, the City of Gainesville Zero Waste Initiative will be at the Grove Street Farmers Market, along with some folks from Life on Plastic. On Tuesday, March 31st, we have a book club event at Cypress and Grove. So we're all reading Garbology, and I welcome you all to read it with us, Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. That event is hosted by Life on Plastic. And Wednesday, April 1st, the county is hosting at 9 a.m. a tour of the Live Vida Brown Environmental Park and Transfer Station. So if you haven't been to that, I encourage everybody to go. You can learn a lot and see a lot of our fantastic systems that we already have in place that help us work towards and achieve zero waste. On Thursday, April 2nd, at the Giving Garden Farm, we have a beginning gardening workshop. So this is a working food event, but also Renewable is partnering with us. And on Friday, April 3rd, we have a composting orientation at the UF Compost Cooperative and Garden. So you can learn how their system works and learn how you can take their food scraps to their system for composting. And Saturday, April 4th, is all about reuse. So Gainesville Hackerspace is hosting a Fix-It Clinic. And at the Repurpose Project, we're hosting a clothing swap. And so we plan this week to showcase what zero waste is and get community involvement. So we invite you all to attend these events. So please join us. They're free events. Some of them do require registration. And you can find all the details on zerowastegainesville.com slash 2026. Okay, Madam Clerk, next item. Next, we have a presentation of a proclamation recognizing April as Water Conservation Month in Elantra County, Florida. I just wanted to make sure that we have those events posted on our website as well. Hello. Mark for zero waste. Do we have those? We have those on our website. Do we have those events that she just? On Visit Gainesville? Okay, thank you. That's a lot. That's a lot. Sorry, I missed you. That's okay. Okay, go ahead. Hello, everyone. I'm really excited to get to read this. I'm always excited. I think I get this every year. And probably in part because once upon a time I was part of this team out in the community working for Elantra County and the Water Management District educating people about water conservation. But now I get the privilege of being the one who gets to make a lot of these decisions. And before I start reading this, I just want to say there's one thing that's not exactly in this but is really a testament to all of you. And that is that probably the number one way we preserve water is through the Wild Spaces Public Places Surtax Initiative and buying important lands that protect our water resources. And so I just want to thank all of you as the voters who pass our Wild Spaces Public Places Initiative every time it's on the ballot. But there are many, many other ways that you can also help. And this will tell you some of them. I'm declaring April as Water Conservation Month in Alachua County, Florida, whereas clean and resilient water resources are vital to Alachua County's environment, economy, and quality of life. And whereas conservation of these resources is critical to sustaining and improving the health of creeks, lakes, and the Santa Fe River and associated springs. And whereas Alachua County prioritizes outdoor water conservation by enforcing irrigation restrictions and the county-wide irrigation design code to minimize inefficient landscape irrigation and fertilizer pollution. And whereas businesses are encouraged to become community leaders in water conservation by discontinuing irrigation on established landscapes and properly registering and maintaining their irrigation systems. And whereas Alachua County supports residents and businesses' efforts to reduce water use through our irrigation tune-ups and rebate programs, educational campaigns, and the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Code for Homeowners Associations. And whereas by committing to water conservation, every resident, business, industry, and school can support Alachua County's efforts to protect our natural resources, safeguard the climate, and reduce the need for costly alternative water supplies. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim April as Water Conservation Month in Alachua County, Florida. It was signed the 24th day of March, and it has all the seals and signatures as needed. The last thing I'll say before I turn it over to this group is just how amazing they are. You don't get to see a lot of the work they do because it's very behind the scenes. Having conversations with industry, having conversation, you know, with HOAs and with landscaping partners, many of whom, you know, don't necessarily understand the challenges that we have with trying to protect the water resources and how their everyday activities can impact them. But they do a really good job of working with those regulatory agencies and those industry partners to find common ground and get us towards moving in the right direction for water conservation. So a big thank you to all of you for your hard work. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, Mr. Chair and Commissioners, for taking the time to recognize April as Water Conservation Month and for your continued leadership in conserving water and protecting our springs, rivers, and lakes. I would also like to acknowledge Environmental Protection Department's Director, Mr. Stephen Hofstetter, Craig McLean from the St. John's River Water Management District, Troy Roberts from the Swanee River Water Management District, and our Water Conservation and Outreach Team, Eliana Barty, Rebecca Hoffman, Holly Greer, and Elise Felt. This group, along with our agency partners, works tirelessly year-round to promote water conservation and stewardship throughout our community. This year, we continue to expand and refine our water conservation programming. You may have heard some of our messaging on NPR over the last year, helping us reach a broader audience and reinforce the importance of water conservation across the region. As you know, irrigation systems can account for up to 60% of a household's total water use. To reduce this demand, our team provides free irrigation tune-ups for high-water-use residential customers, helping them save both water and money. We also offer rebates through our grant-funded Irrigation Level Up program to support water saving upgrades. We are also working directly and closely with property managers and business owners to implement the commercial irrigation systems registration and annual maintenance requirements. In many cases, significant water savings can be achieved simply by reducing or eliminating irrigation on well-established landscapes. We encourage the business community to take advantage of available resources and partner with us in these conservation efforts. In addition, we continue to promote Florida-friendly landscaping principles that reduce the need for irrigation, fertilizers, and pesticides. We do this through targeted outreach, social media campaigns, community presentations, and direct engagement with residents. I would also like to highlight that both the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Swanee River Water Management District have recently declared a Phase II water shortage due to the ongoing dry conditions across North Florida. These declarations underscore the importance of using water efficiently and following irrigation restrictions, as well as the need for continued vigilance in protecting our water resources during periods of drought. Finally, I'd like to recognize and acknowledge our Water Resources Program Manager, Stacey Greco, who will be coming back later this summer for a discussion about the proposed Water First North Florida project. I wanted to share these programs and updates for the benefits of those here today and those online who may be interested in reducing their water wastes, and I again invite everyone to the upcoming Post Springs Santa Fe Rivers celebration on April 11th from 11 to 4 and enjoy a true jewel of our community. Thank you again, commissioners, for your ongoing support and for leading the way in water conservation efforts. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler? Commissioner Wheeler? Did you have something? No. Oh, light. Oh. And I'm Luke Sekula, one of the members of the Water Conservation Team here. There you are. All right. Okay, Commissioner Chestnut and Madam Clerk, next item. Next, Mr. Chair, that'll bring us to presentation of a proclamation recognizing April 19th through April 25th as Medical Laboratory Professionals Week in Elastro County, Florida. A proclamation declaring April 19th through the 25th as Medical Laboratory Professional Week in Elastro County, Florida, whereas the health of all Americans depend upon educated minds and trained hands and the practice of modern medicine at the standard we now enjoy would be impossible without the scientific tests performed daily in medical laboratories and approximately 300,000 medical laboratory professionals and 15,000 board-certified pathologists perform and interpret medical laboratory tests and play a valuable role in the patient's health care. And whereas these highly trained and dedicated medical laboratory professionals make an invaluable contribution to the quality of health care and save countless lives each day by providing reliable test results required for prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. And whereas diversified employees of the medical laboratory include pathologists, pathologist assistant, medical laboratories, scientists, cytotechnologists, histocytologists, microbiologists, medical laboratory technicians, medical laboratory technicians, medical laboratory assistants, medical laboratory technicians, medical secretary and transcriptionist, laboratory clerk, staff, and laboratory courier who perform related duties 24 hours per day every day of the year. And whereas laboratory medicine is an honorable profession which should be recognized individuals as vital to the high standards of health care enjoyed in the state of Florida and the city of Gainesville. And whereas the medical laboratory profession week is an excellent opportunity to promote behind-the-scenes work of medical laboratory professionals, to recruit students to recruit students to the field, to thank medical laboratory professionals, and gain visibility for the medical laboratory throughout the institutions and the community. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Elijahwood County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim April 19th through the 25th as Medical Laboratory Professional Week in Elijahwood County, Florida, due to proclaim this 24th day of March, A.D. 2026, assigned by our chair, Ken Cornell, and attested to by our clerk, Jess Irby. And I'd like to make you present this proclamation and make some remarks to us. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Mark DeLuna. I've been at UF Health for 16 years. I'm a member of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, member of the Florida Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, and also a member of the Philippine Association of Medical Technologists USA, Incorporated. So, yes, we just thank the COVID-19 pandemic for exploding our profession out there. We thank, you know, I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't know what our profession is, but we thank the pandemic, and, you know, we are here, we are part of the care team for the patients. So, we do work behind the scenes. So, I'm glad this proclamation happened today. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Chesterton. I guess it's 12 o'clock, we'll do public comment? All right. Let's go ahead and open up public comment. So, this is an opportunity for the public to address anything that's not on the agenda. If you'll come forward, introduce yourself. We've got a light system. Green means go, yellow means 30 seconds, red means it's the next person's term. And with that, we'll open up public comment. Mr. Connish, you are recognized. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to overhead, please. Overhead, please. I'm going to continue to try to get you to understand the Florida right to farm law. I understand that there's this belief that local government can become semi-autonomous by merely ignoring the legislature, whether it comes to GRU governance or whether it comes to protection of agricultural activities, sir. The Florida right to farm law provides immunity, absolute immunity from all your local regulations, if the farm is subject to state of Florida best management practice and if it's actually a farm. I actually have a timber farm. There is no way to dispute it. Hutch does not have a farm. He has a farce. So, under the right to farm law, there is absolutely no limit on what you build, how you build it. The Florida building code does not apply. The local building codes does not apply. There's no height restriction. If you want liability insurance, you better not build a crappy building. My liability company is delighted about my building. And you should be, too, instead of trespassing my land and slapping notices on an exempt building. That is a civil rights violation that could get everyone in a lot of trouble, and I don't want to go down that road. The latest thing is Jim Connish is accused of basically pooping on the ground or letting other people poop on the ground that I've loved for 40 years. And that, of course, is false. There is an express protection against nuisance actions. Nuisance actions are used to run a farmer off the land. So, let's just say, hypothetically, that the Department of Health discovered untreated or improperly treated human waste harmful to human or animal life, or an improperly built or improperly maintained septic tank, water closet. Let's just assume that. I don't have any of that. But let's just assume that. That's merely evidence of a sanitary nuisance. That is not a sanitary nuisance. That's evidence. And in order to prevail, the Department of Health is going to have to prove, by clear and convincing evidence in the elevated standards, that there's actually an actual nuisance. And contrary to what your people tell the public, when you look at the Department of Health rules, there are a lot of provisions for pump-out facilities and for innovative systems. If you have an actual farm and you don't have a lot of traffic, you don't have to put in a septic tank. Thank you, Mr. Collins. It's not necessary. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right, next speaker, please. Ms. Franson, welcome. Thank you. Hello, Adele Franson. Adele, if you'll move that microphone down, that way we can hear you. There you go. Thank you. Perfect. I'm just taken so with the news that Animal Services is going to have an investigation. What I'm concerned about is how much of an investigation, because it seems as though it's kind of limited to allegations. I think for too long, too much has been swept under the rug. Therefore, the investigation must be independent and truly third party, with no ties to the county or to the shelter. And I'd like to ask in my narrative, any questions I would like to have the answer to, and I'm sure that the public would also deserve full disclosure. The investigation must go beyond the recent allegations for seven years. I don't know if you can relate, because nothing was done, so I draw the conclusion that you can't relate to what it must be to suffer. We had a dog, Chloe, who had neurological problems, so flea infested, a terrible environment, suffering. Michelle Lieberman says the buck stops here. Well, nothing was ever done. Nothing was ever done. Nothing was ever done. Chloe continued to suffer until her death. I don't know why you can't imagine that. You can't have any compassion to allow it. Please, my question, why was this allowed? And I'm sure there were other situations in the community, not just the facility. Even though in 2019, Heather Akpa was asked to do an investigation, asked by Michelle Lieberman. She did a terrific investigation, which went nowhere. She found animals dying and no, again, abuse taking place there. Nothing was ever done with that investigation. How much could have been saved if it had been addressed then? So, but it's going to be addressed now. Hopefully, it will be comprehensive. And hopefully, well, the investigation will go beyond the recent allegations. And also, I think that what needs attention is that the public, myself, wants to participate in the government. What I got was harassment. Thirty-eight pictures of my house. Thank you, Mr. Manson. A citation that I abused animals. Thank you, Mr. Manson. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Yep. And we'll address all the answers to the comments at the end. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Hi. My name is Chris Deutsch. Two weeks ago at the March 10th regular BOCC meeting, the board approved a four-point motion addressing concerns with Alachua County Animal Resources and Care. I would like to use my three precious minutes to discuss the update given by the county manager to the second item. The original text of that item is asking our county manager to consider a new interim director for animal resources as Gina Peebles as part of the investigation. Ms. Lieberman's response to an email citizen request for an update of those items was as follows, and I quote, The board's action was to ask that I consider whether a different interim leadership structure would be appropriate while the investigation is pending. At present, Ms. Peebles remains in her current role. However, to provide additional support and oversight during this period, I have arranged for senior staff to be regularly present and engaged with operations at Animal Resources. This support is being provided on a rotating basis by other assistant county managers, a department director, and the human resources director, so that operation continues in coordination with county leadership, end quote. This update is dizzying in its lack of clarity and an obvious pretense of oversight. This is another example of conflict of interest. The employees monitoring Ms. Peebles that is supporting her are her peers and in some cases could be supportants to her position of assistant county manager. We aren't told who they are, what time frame is meant by regularly present, or what period of time they are at the shelter. Let me, I'm sorry, excuse me. Okay, and with so many individuals rotating through, no one person could get a working knowledge of shelter operations, thus could not be expected to engage in a meaningful oversight. The optics of this solution for monitoring the interim director, who is the subject of an extremely serious investigation, is beyond disturbing. It is disingenuous to believe that the solution proposed by the county manager addresses or implements the intent of the board's directive, even given her broad latitude of interpreting directives. My ask for the county is, the board today is to respond to the solution Ms. Lieberman instituted, and if it satisfies your request of her. I'll end with a quote that appeared in an email to the BOCC from Vicki Quintanilla. When the well-being and defenseless animals is involved, communities have every right to ask careful questions about experience, philosophy, transparency, and track record. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Weech. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Lynn Moore. At the previous meeting, we voiced our concerns about Brittany Diazio being in the running for the director position at ECCAR. We ask that she be removed due to her past history at Polk County Animal Shelter and her involvement in the current investigation. To our knowledge, as of today, she is still one of the finalists for this position. How can this be, we ask. Not only is she part of an extensive investigation into alleged animal cruelty and abuse at ECCAR, there are also numerous accusations against her from her time at Polk County Animal Shelter. These include high euthanasia numbers and unaccounted disappearance of animals during her tenure. This trend seems to have followed her to ACAR with increases in euthanasia and lower live release rates. Lack of proper day-to-day care of animals. At ACAR, they are trying to keep play yards and kennels cleaner, but it is the mental and physical well-being of the animals that is our concern. The dogs need time out of their kennels on a daily basis and not for just a few minutes out of 24 hours. Many prominent individuals have come forward warning against her being promoted to shelter director due to her past performance. At Polk County in 2024, 401 dogs and cats died for reasons other than euthanasia. 564 escaped and live release rate was at 58%. When at Polk County, the volunteer program was discontinued. Residents were not allowed to bring in cell phones and rescues were no longer allowed to pull dogs for foster or adoption. Brittany allowed the sale of cat cadavers to Biocore, yet when an income and expense statement was requested, it was not granted. Where did the money go? Brittany has no training in shelter management nor population control, and when asked, she did not support TNR. All of the above claims were backed by testimonies from prominent individuals, all who were warning against Brittany being promoted to shelter director. Alachua County supports a no-kill shelter with proper physical and mental care of the animals. Rescues want to have good relations with ACCAR, but to do this, we need a transparent director, a compassionate animal advocate. We need assurance that animals transferred out are going to reputable vetted rescues, and we should be privy to this info as taxpayers. There are some questionable encounters we've had with Emerald Shores and Zootrek, and we don't really think that they were reputable or very well vetted. By referencing animals as fostered when they merely had a day out with a volunteer is both wrong and misleading and skews the data. We need to say when something is transferred to another rescue or is adopted and those two cannot be interchanged. We are therefore asking for confirmation that Brittany is no longer a candidate for this position, and if she is, we would like to be told the reason why. Her work ethic is the complete opposite of what Alachua County wants in a shelter director. And we would like to know when, we will know when the new director has been chosen. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Put this down. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Patricia Antonucci, and we've got to stop meeting like this. I'm here today to talk- I agree, Patricia. I'm here today to talk about leadership and transparency. Alachua County's mission is to provide responsive service to citizens and responsible stewardship of county resources. When it comes to our concerns with ACAR, we feel that county management is undercutting this board's ability to do this. Each time, this commission takes action towards improvement at ACAR, and we do see you trying. County management all but negates your efforts. Issues regarding a general lack of transparency and poor shelter leadership continue. As mentioned, Gina Peebles and Brittany Dazzo remain in their positions at the shelter, despite this board's recommendation that they be removed. The county solution has been to place other county managers and HR personnel in the shelter to oversee Peebles and Dazzo, but these people do not have animal welfare expertise. Their presence at the shelter compromises the integrity of the investigation, and it may cause a chilling effect on current staff who wish to report incidents at the shelter or to investigate a body. I addressed these issues in an email dated March 17th, which I would like to submit as an exhibit today, and ask that it be attached to and become part of the permanent record. The lack of transparency is also apparent in ACAR's ongoing policies. Volunteers are increasingly cut off from various areas of the shelter, newly labeled as staff only. Statistics are collected without attention to proper categorization. Whiteboards intended to track dog time out of kennels are misused and or erased indiscriminately. Documents produced via public record requests further underscore these concerns, uncovering connections to questionable corporations and sloppy record keeping. As just one example, reports that show animal euthanasias authorized by staff members, those staff members were not actually even present at the shelter on the dates they supposedly provided authorization. Emails to the BOCC from local animal welfare experts highlight these concerns and mention that they were also present at Polk County under the management of Brittany Diazo. Continuing the poor optics, we recently learned that Stephanie Marchman is leading the whistleblower investigation into ACAR policies and leadership. Ms. Marchman is a lawyer, not an animal welfare expert, and her practice is built upon employer-based advocacy. Indeed, there may be no actual undue influence, but to a public whose trust has already been significantly eroded, even the appearance of impropriety cuts deeply. In 2017, Ms. Lieberman endorsed Ms. Marchman for a position on the Board of Governors. Ms. Marchman served many years as an attorney for the city of Gainesville and is likely familiar with many of those in county management. It's not clear whether she can serve as a true third party neutral. From our perspective, the best we can hope for is a thorough records review from an attorney with a track record of pro-management representation. Without consultation and significant input from animal welfare experts, the response to cruelty concerns seems a foregone conclusion. This investigation should be unbiased, thorough, and consistent with association of shelter veterinarian guidelines for standards of care in animal shelters. If the board has no authority to ensure this, please let us know who does. We must work with those directly empowered to make decisions for the benefit of Valachia. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Antonucci. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Next speaker, please. I will attempt to address. Mr. Blunt, welcome. Hello. I hope the overhead can pick. Yeah. Can we get overhead, please? Colleague? I'll talk about that in a second. I want to, on the one hand, commend our wonderful library district for having a free training on broadband skills and use this morning. It was at 1030, and if I would not have been here to bother you, except on the other hand, it's in High Springs. So me and all other RTS users cannot access that training. So, and this has happened occasionally. You know, something wonderful happens at a branch and it doesn't come to the in-town locations. I hope they would try to spread it around. But since I've brought a negative, I want to offer you a positive. I invite you to come tap your toes and bring an instrument, if you have one, Friday at Baby J's, and we'll give you some jazz. Thank you. Thank you, Colleague. That Friday is 8 o'clock. We have the county fire rescues award, so I'll be there, but maybe one of y'all can go do some jazz if you're available. Okay. Next speaker, please. And then if we could go to the phones. Is there anyone after Sorgie? Okay. We'll go to the phones after that. Welcome. Hello. Soria Lindberg. Speaking of Water Conservation Month, as you all know, I live in the Santa Fe Hills neighborhood, an enclave in the city of Alachua. We rely on a shared well that the county manages through Public Works, and so the groundwater here is all of our responsibility and concern. Is that okay? Just real quickly, I'm going to circle where my neighborhood is, and I want to talk about the seat of Alachua. Two weeks ago, the Planning and Zoning Board meeting had an agenda item for Tower Hill Insurance, Tomoka Hills property. So up the top is our neighborhood. This is the golf course, and over there is Mill Creek Sink, just a reminder of how we're all connected. So in April 2025, the original site plan of the golf course was approved for Tower Hill employees to be private. And then a couple weeks later, they came back. They wanted a site plan amendment to change the users of the golf course from employees to Tomoka Farms Property Owners Association. The understanding is someone at the state level had some heartburn about a golf course having an insurance company having a golf course. So it was approved three to two. And my argument was when you expand the user base, you expand the environmental impact. More people, more traction, more chemicals, et cetera. So I am asking you to see if you could consider an appeal for this project to be reviewed again, and I have my reasons why. This is a map from the Florida Springs Institute. This is I-75, 441. And I have a zoom in of it as well. So this is where the golf course would be. And then as you know, my neighborhood is right there. Some new evidence I presented at the March hearing a couple weeks ago is in a memo from Dr. Upchurch. He is a world-renowned geologist, and he said that he recommended studies on the property for the presence of sinkholes and paleo sinkholes. And he got this information because many years ago, this is from a journal. You'll see here they note springs on the property. There's 441, I-75. So I'll present all this so you can read it in detail. So they're going to have 70 or 80 acres of fertilizer and sprinkler. And this is important because when it goes through the ground, it goes to my water. Like I'm not in any other water. There's a couple of procedural concerns. They advertised it without saying it's quasi-judicial. So the public and no one knew that you could have experts. You could bring evidence. I found out on accident because I'm an overachiever. And I sent a presentation and they said, are you going to be an effective party? I said, what? It's not a quasi-judicial. So everyone else in town had no idea. Can I say one more point? Yep, wrap up. Real quick. A board member, Virginia Johns, when they approved this at first last year, she recused herself. She did not recuse herself the second time. If she would have recused herself again, it would have been 2-2. So again, fertilizer, I just want them to do it right. And for us to have some clarity that they're doing it. And just to consider an appeal. And when you mentioned exemptions for water conservation, golf courses are exempt from fertilizer bans. Thank you, Ms. Lindbergh. Okay, next speaker. And then we'll go to the phone. Anyone else after this? All right, we'll go to the phones. Oh, we got one more. Around the corner. Oh, Mark. Okay. Sorry, I didn't see Mark. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Ms. Lindbergh. And first of all, I want to thank all of those people who brought up the issue of water conservation. As an elected person with that, as one of my responsibilities, I am really thankful for that. The other issue I bring up, I would like for my neighbor to hear it. Apparently, he's not getting the messages. Because even though the county and the city issued a water conservation ban, that very day or the next day, during the middle of the day, I saw my neighbor watering his lawn. That's not the first time I saw that happen. That, to me, is unconstable and unacceptable. So perhaps we might want to do more to make sure that people take those notices seriously. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lee. Okay, Mark, you're up. And we're going to go to the phones. Wow. Yeah, so karst is 48% oxygen. 48%? 48% oxygen. Limestone is 48% oxygen. That's why it seeps so easily down into the quote-unquote act of these interests. He's interested in other people. Yeah, interested in other animal volunteers. I know. The animal people are around. You can feel the vibe, you know. So I was going to make a poem. And the poem is about this monkey. And the monkey is very busy doing his sting and wants things to be organized. So when spring comes, it goes out and, like, cuts all these stings that are coming out of the ground because it needs to be in control. And so what the monkey doesn't realize is that all the other monkeys are doing the same thing, too, and that we end up with 40 million acres, literally 40 million acres, of the most water-intensive, the most chemical-intensive practice, hobby, pursuit, obsession that there is. In the meantime, we talk about nature. We talk about water. We talk about conservation. We talk about climate. We talk about blah, blah, blah, blah. But this monkey is really not necessarily the monkey. What really happens is if it was a whale, it would probably be the same thing or a squirrel. Because for nature, for you to survive, you have to focus on what's happening in your immediate environment. And so that's what you're in control of. But what us and other animals, you know, we don't really see ourselves when we get to reach, like, 7 billion. Because really, believe it or not, the practice of actually cutting all this green stuff that comes out of the ground in springtime is only, like, 100 years old or something. But now it's, like, global. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's got a machine that's got to be killed. And these little colorful things that come out of the ground, too, they happen to be food for these other things that fly around, which is basically the foundation of our nature. And yet we keep doing it. We're so busy. We want to be so in control. We don't realize the total impact. Anyway, it's a poem. I'm not sure, you know, you can keep it to three minutes, but you get the basic picture. If you want to change this, you've got to lead by example. It's doable. Doesn't mean you have to stop doing it. You just have to modify it. You can modify it to optimize, you know, the practices, optimize our ecological, optimize our agricultural potential. Sell it as something that benefits us, which it does. You're welcome. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for always making us think. Thank you. Okay. Mark Sexton, are you here? Or is there someone that can help with the phone? Saw him go up there, and then I saw him go out there. I saw his shoulders shrugging up there. Josh is throwing his hands up. Alan's throwing his hands up. We might not have anyone on the phone. He's coming to see. Playing hard to get again. Beg your pardon, Mr. Chair. No, that's okay. Is there anyone on the phones? There is. Okay. We have two callers. Okay. And we will start with the caller whose number ends in 8451. If you will hit star six to speak and state your name. You're in the room. This is Catherine McGuire. I'm just calling in to kind of echo once again some of the sentiments of the community members regarding Alachua County Animal Services and how things are going with the current investigation and current administration. I just want to reiterate the need, not just desire, but need for transparency through all of this. Like they were stating earlier, it was kind of a big hit of disappointment to hear that the people in charge of the investigation are kind of connected in ways that we were hoping they wouldn't be. Now, obviously, that's not always an end all be all, but there has been a serious lack of transparency throughout the operations of ACAR and the way the community gets information either from them, to them, by them. The problem that I want to kind of highlight is that it's not just, I know you guys see our faces and you hear our voices and we're at the meetings and we're making our voices known. And there's kind of the same faces that you guys see on a regular basis. But regardless of how many times we show up, it's the community at large that is seeing this distrust. And I can't tell you how many times people are finding lost or stray animals right now and they are refusing to report it to Alachua County. They are refusing to take animals to the shelter. They state that they would rather just let the animal go back out on the streets because they don't trust what is happening at the shelter. There are community members posting their own horror stories about what has happened, animals, cats being lost, animals being reported out, but no proof of such. And it's just, it's devastating to the animal community to see that people, that the distrust is going so far that people aren't even trying to utilize the service anymore. And at the end of the day, we all want to see change. We all want to see the welfare of these animals as a top priority. But the way that the distrust is leaning, people just aren't even wanting to use the service anymore. And that's not the point. We're trying to let these animals just keep roaming on the streets. And so I think it is extremely important that there are better, more obvious strides made to show that the lack of transparency is being addressed. The lack of transparency is attempting to be changed because right now the community is very scared and that's not what we want to see at all. We don't want to see more animals being hurt throughout this process because people don't trust the community to do the right thing or trust the board or the shelter or the management to do the right thing. So I just kind of want to reiterate that, that, you know, we, we, the lack of transparency is painful. It's, it's hurting the community continuously. It's not something that's just going to stop while the investigation is going on. So I just want to bring that to the attention and just put another plea out for there to be some honesty and trust building with not only the faces that we're seeing regularly, but. Yeah. Thank you, Ms. McGuire. Thank you for your comments. Did you want to wrap up? Okay. Next speaker. Okay. We have a caller whose number ends in 0050. If you'll hit star six and state your name, we can hear you. My name is Katie Boston and I was involved in a longstanding animal abuse case involving dogs in our community years ago. It concluded in 2023. But because of that experience, I spent years reviewing records, speaking with neighbors and following the actions of animal resources and care related to that case. Um, I'm also here to mirror the concerns that are currently being examined in the animal resources and care investigation. Um, I appreciate that the county has initiated an investigation into the department. But once again, as I've said before, I think transparency in a situation like this is really important due to all the past. All right. Hello. Yes. We can hear you. We lost you for a second, but you're back. Okay. Um, okay. So however, based on the documentation history surrounding these issues, I respectfully ask that the scope of this investigation also include or go back to the period beginning in 2017 when Ed Williams became the director of animal services. Um, I think the concerns being discussed today did not suddenly appear and for years neighbors, former employees, public records, uh, repeatedly documented concerns about how certain animal cruelty complaints were handled. Um, and during that time animals continue to suffer in ways that were reported again and again by the community. Um, and also looking at the leadership decisions, policies, and oversight during that period would help investigators understand whether those warnings were adequately addressed and whether earlier intervention could have prevented continued harm. And I think just true accountability requires more than examining the most recent events. Um, and if we could understand how these situations developed over time, that would be extremely helpful. And if we want to prevent animals from enduring that kind of suffering, again, we must be willing to examine the full timeline that brought us here, um, and the roles of all county leadership and oversight offices involved. And that's, that's, that's it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Mark, anyone? Mr. Chair, that was the last comment. Okay. So we'll go ahead and close public comment. So, um, before we get to the animal services on the, Ms. Linkenberg's request, I was going to ask if perhaps the county manager could get with Steve and maybe give us an update at manager comment at the end of the meeting. Um, I, I, I, I never really heard how that went. Is that okay, commissioner, that we get an update on that and see if there's any interest in an appeal? Okay. Um, all right, on animal services, I know we've got Ms. Torres that can give an update on the investigation for Adele. Ms. Francine is going to be independent. And then on the, uh, we've got Ms. Akpan here, who's going to give us an update on, um, the process for the new director. And I believe the idea behind the rotation, rotating basis. Um, let me express to you all my, my understanding. First of all, county government doesn't move fast enough and I'm sorry for that. And I wish it did. And unfortunately we are constrained by, um, speed at which we move. But it is my understanding that after our last meeting for the first week, we had Ms. Peoples there, who was introducing, uh, assistant county managers, which would come a different one every day because we wanted really an all hands on deck. Um, so that they could meet people and be there. She's then out for two weeks, uh, on a previously, previously, um, requested vacation. And so the assistant county managers would be there during, during that two week period. And then when, um, that's three weeks and then hopefully we'll have an update on the new director when she returns. That's my understanding. It's not, she's not listening to us. I think she's trying to put the highest level folks that we have into the situation to understand what's going on. Ms. Akpan, can you sub, um, supplement that with a timing of where we are or I'm sorry. Mr. Chair, I think Susie's going to do that. Okay. Susie, if you could give us an update on the timing of the new director, um, and what that process looks like and where we are there. I heard your concerns loud and clear with regards to what you all said. Um, and I think we've expressed that we really want a director that is focused on adoption. Uh, and so Susie, go ahead. Good afternoon, Chairman and commissioners. We, I want to share with you a little bit about, um, the process we've put into the process. We've put in place. So the assistant county managers, myself and Ms. Tuck have been at the shelter every day, 830 to five o'clock. We've been rotating. Ms. Tuck and I are here today and the county managers are here. But as soon as we are finished here, we will be going back to the shelter. So we have been there. We've been actively involved. We've been walking dogs. We've been walking through the shelter. We've been part of the leadership team meetings as well. Um, we've been interacting. We've been interacting. We've not just been in our office. We've been out interacting with staff, um, and developing those relationships with staff. So we will continue that process. We have it on the calendar right now through April. So we will continue that process as long as it is needed for us to be there and be supportive of the employees and the interim director. With regards to the hiring of the new director, we are doing our due diligence. The manager is doing her due diligence. We, we, I was part of those interviews. So we have, we have interviewed. We are doing our due diligence and going back and reviewing all of the applications that were submitted that made it through the screening process. So when the manager returns next week, we will be continuing to review those applications, reaching out to people and doing our due diligence to make sure that, that we hired, we bring the best person forward for that position. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions or? Yeah. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Alpern and Commissioner Prezio. Yes. And Commissioner Wheeling. Okay. Thank you. So, uh, last Wednesday, I was at the shelter for an hour or so with my granddaughter and, um, I didn't see another staff person there. Was, who, who would have been there at that time? Um, Ms. Okpom was there. Oh, were you there? Okay. You saw me? Okay. Good. All right. I just, I was just curious because, um, I was, uh, I was there for a while and it was, I was mostly focused on my granddaughter. So, um, yeah, she had, she had a great time and it was a really nice visit and I had really good conversations with the, um, the employees that I interacted with. Um, and I, I feel really bad because I, uh, my granddaughter got scratched by a cat and then that cat had to go in timeout. And, um, for 10 days and that made me very sad, but, um, I guess those things happen sometime. Anyway, uh, thank you for, for, for that and, uh, thank you, Heather, for being there. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Prezio and then Commissioner Wheeler. Um, I got, uh, my question was, my question was, um, I thought that we were through the application review process and, and in the final interview process. Did none of the finalists make it through? So we are, we are just reviewing the managers, just reviewing all the applications again, just to make sure that we are doing our due diligence. We asked her to go back through all the applications. So we're just reviewing? Yeah. Yes. Okay. What is the timeline associated with? The manager will be back next week and that we have, um, scheduled meetings to review. So, so at this point our, our plan is to review next week and I will get with the manager next week to, to determine the timeline for the decision. Okay. I just want to be like, I'm not trying to be critical of HR generally speaking, but I have found that our hiring process is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really long. And that really, really, really long process means that we lose candidates because they find other jobs, they lose interest, they, you know, it's so, I just, I would just really encourage us if we have good quality. I, I don't know the candidates, but if we have good quality candidates that we be sure that we do this as quickly as we can so that we don't lose the opportunity to have good candidates. Um, that might be in the pool because I just, I, the amount of time that it takes us to hire someone is, needs to get tightened up somehow. I don't know how that happens, but it needs to happen. I mean, it's months to hire someone and that's just, you know, in the real world, in today's job market, it's just not ideal for us in terms of being competitive for getting good quality candidates in. So, I just put that out there. I know we asked her to do the extra review. I don't recall that actually, but I, I, I hear you. Um, and I appreciate the due diligence. I just hope the due diligence doesn't slow down, um, the overall hiring process. Um, that's, that's one comment. My other comment is to the public, I just want to say, um, Stephanie Marchman is an incredibly talented and incredibly intelligent and incredibly accomplished attorney. Um, she has worked both for employers and employees in this type of field. And I think that she will bring a very objective and thoughtful approach to the investigation that she's doing. Um, she has the utmost integrity and is very well respected in her field is on the bars. I mean, she's, you really can't find someone that's as beyond reproach. I really truly believe that. Um, I, otherwise I would be calling for somebody else to do the investigation. And I will also say that we have, we have allowed within that investigation for her to hire any professionals that she needs because we recognize that she's not an expert in animal welfare or in standard operating procedures. And so, um, I know that there was authorization for her to hire any professionals that she needs so that they, she can bring subject matter experts in during the investigation and make sure that she gets through. And I also wanted to say with regards to the person who mentioned at the beginning about, um, the investigation scope, um, the manager has already agreed that if that investigation does not, is not comprehensive enough for us to get to the bottom of any issues that may be happening. That once we didn't want to compromise that investigation, once that investigation is complete, if we need to do additional third party auditing of operations at the shelter that she would be open to doing that again, cause we haven't done that for a number of years. So, um, which I think addresses Katie's comment. Yeah. So I wanted to put those three things out there. Um, and then of course to second the idea that we get an update on the Tomoka Hills issue. I have manager comment. I have manager comment. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to tell you too, that I was out at the shelter and Missy was there. Um, so I've been going out there pretty regularly. Um, Missy, Heather, Susan. Yes. Yes. Claudia. Tommy. Tommy. Yes. Yeah. I was there when Missy was there. I just, I just want to say, and I'll be going to the ACAR meeting in the morning, uh, with the group. Okay. I've been to the other meetings off, not all, all of them, but I am there enough that people should know that, that there is somebody from the county who is interested in hearing what's got to be said. Um, I would speak to what Commissioner Prizia is saying in terms of speeding up a process. I just don't feel like with the, the emotional fever that's going on around the shelter right now that we need to be too quick to jump just because we feel like we need to get that taken care of because, um, I would rather it be right. We, we don't want, you know, we don't want trial and error anymore. No, I'm saying if we have a good quality candidate, we'd lose them. We lose candidates as the perfect candidate. Have you, have you talked to Michelle about the candidates? Have you? Not yet. No, no, I did. And so I see what the concern is in terms of making sure that we go back to see if there is more experience out there that we really need at this time in this place. And this is, no, I've been following as closely as I possibly can and getting in everybody's business, um, from the shelter folks to our staff here to make sure that we are treading lightly when it comes to making sure because, you know, people heard you loud and clear. You know, the, the paper reported, we want the right leader. We need the right leader. They reported me badly. And this is what I would warn folks who are listening because the Gainesville sun quoted me badly in a light. And I don't know if you all saw it or not. They said that I went out unannounced to the shelter and saw poop on the, in, uh, pee and empty bowls. That's all they said. And what I said was, yes, it was early in the morning before we had gotten there. And when I got there, there were 30 kids from Oak Hall and two DOJ people there who were working with me to clean those cages so it would be open and ready for the public by 10 o'clock. They didn't say that. They just said I was there unannounced and saw all of this. So I just want us to be very careful. And I will tell you too, Mr. Chair and this board, that the one, the one, uh, email that we got from somebody from Polk County. Where? Is that where? Okay. The one expert that we had that had contacted us, I called him immediately because I wanted to hear directly from him what he had to say. And it was very ambiguous. It was not, it was not what, what I would thought was going to be. So just please know that there is somebody on this board who cares very much about what's happening at that shelter. And I've got my finger on every pulse I can find from staff to administration to our administration who works for us. Right? So I just want the public to know we just need to be, not only is, or there's somebody on this board who's taking it on, but there's also a lot of information that gets twisted around that paints a picture that may not be accurate. So I'm really waiting until after this investigation is done so I can blow it out of my butt. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner Prizia? Just to respond to that, I'm 100% with you. Don't put that. If we don't. Sorry. If we don't have. If they will put that in the paper, at least that's accurate. No. To respond to that, I don't, I'm 100% with you. If we don't have the right candidate, I don't want us to rush into anything and pick the wrong person. The right leadership is absolutely crucial. Right. What we do want is that when we find the right candidate that we don't spend a month and a half on due diligence and lose that candidate, which has happened in the past. Like our hiring processes, and I understand government has to go slow and we have to do our background checks and we have to do our this and we have to do our that. But at the end of the day, you know, even a provisional offer coming up with some ways to speed up our processes so that we don't lose good qualified candidates. It was, it was more of a comment generally about our hiring processes and how long they take than it was about our choice. I want to make sure our choice is 100%, 100% for those animals. And the other thing I wanted to say is I did have a question for our attorney related to a conversation we had the other day about sterilization. And I just, you don't need to respond now, but maybe at attorney comment or in a future email. I did look into the statutes and it appears that there is a statute 823.153 B that says that any animal that we release through adoption sale or relinquishing custody of animals should be sterilized prior to release. And so I don't know if that is in fact still a thing, but I, you know, it made me realize that, you know, my comment about we should do this isn't just like a whim comment. It's actually in statute that we should be doing that rather than handing back animals intact unless they have a breeder's license. So I just wanted to ask if the attorney could review that and let me know if I'm interpreting this appropriately or not. Ms. Horace, do you want to comment on that and if anything you want to add to the investigation? Ms. So, Mr. Chair, I can speak to the statute brought up by the commissioner. It does require sterilization for adoption and for release for sale from a public shelter, except in two articulated situations. One being that the animal is too young to be sterilized. It's more than a month away from sexual maturity. And the other being medical issues that would damage the animal potentially. So we are required to sterilize. Okay. Ms. Regarding the investigation, I don't have a whole lot more to say than what was said already. What I would say is that this particular investigator has an impeccable reputation in the legal community. And she has done investigations for us in the past and we found them to be thoughtful and unbiased. We also, in our contract, allow the investigator to decide what neutral experts she might want. We have allowed for up to $75,000 without coming back to us to ask for more money for those. So I believe we are taking this seriously. All right. We'll see you when you get back. Okay. So hang with us is all I'm going to say. Thank you for being here. And we will continue to do the good work that you're asking us to do. Anything else, Commissioner, before we move on to the rest of our agenda? All right. Let's go ahead and Madam Clerk then. This will bring us to the board and committee items. The first item will be the history of the city of Alachua, a reading by the Alachua County Historical Commission. Okay. I thought I saw Melanie Barr, but I see some other folks here. Welcome. Come forward and give us your thoughts. Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Camisha Alexis, Planner for Growth Management and Staff Liaison for the Historical Commission. I am happy to introduce Velma Roca Fernandez as our speaker today. She is a member of the Historical Commission appointed in May 2025. Good afternoon. My name is Velma Roca Fernandez. I have the honor to be part of the Historical Commission. And I apologize any mispronunciation, but having a British English teacher when I was a kid, sometimes I don't say elevator, but I say lift. So, as part of the Alachua County Commission, our three-minute lecture on the history of the county today is focused on the city of Alachua, where history is not only remembered, but also lived. Long before Main Street was filled with storefronts and brick buildings, defining the city of Alachua downtown, this land already had a story that spanned thousands of years. For over 2,000 years, from around 500 BC to early 1700s, this region was inhabited by the Timucua people, including the Potaino, who lived throughout what is now north-central Florida. Their presence influenced the cultural and physical landscape of this area long before the city we recognize today existed. Even the name Alachua reflects a deep connection to the land. It originates from a Timucua word, Chua, which is believed to refer to the sinkholes, natural limestone depressions that shape the region's landscape. These features are more than just part of the scenery. They are a vital part of this place's identity. When the Spanish colonizers arrived, the word was pronounced in Spanish, Vamos a Alachua. We are going to the Chua. By early 1600s, the area became part of the Spanish Florida, where missions such as San Francisco de Potano were established. These missions linked indigenous communities and Spanish settlers, marking a period of cultural exchange, yet also causing significant disruption. Disease conflict and colonial pressures caused the decline of the Timucua population, and by the early 1700s, their presence in this region had largely disappeared. The story of this land did not end. It continued to evolve. In the 1800s, a new community emerged. Noonansville, one of the earliest American settlements in this region and the original county seat of Alachua County. During the Second Seminole War in the 1830s and 1840s, Noonansville became a place of refuge and activity, growing into an important center of early Florida life. But history is never static. In 1884, the arrival of the Savannah, Florida, and the Western Railroad transformed the region. When the railroad bypassed Noonansville, residents and business followed the tracks, giving rise to a new settlement. By 1887, a post office had been established and a new community had taken shape. That community will develop into the city of Alachua. On April 12, 1905, the Alachua was officially incorporated with a population of 526 residents. In the following years, it rapidly grew into a regional center for agriculture, commerce, and daily life. By 1914, the city boasted banks, hotels, mills, and vital infrastructure, proof of a thriving and expanding community. Main Street became the center of everything. The buildings that still stand today are more than just structures. They are witnesses to history. In recognition of their importance, the city of Alachua Downtown Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 14, 2000, thereby preserving over a century of architectural and civic heritage. But this history also carries tragic truths. Historical records document acts of racial violence in this region, including multiple lynchings in the late 1800s, with nine recorded cases in Noonansville, today's city of Alachua, between 1867 and 1896. They also include the assassinations of Reverend A.S.J. Allen by a white neighbor over a property border dispute in 1904. During the Jim Crow era, late 1860s, state and local laws in the U.S. enforced strict racial segregation and legitimized white supremacy, especially in the South, separate but equal. The white neighbor faced no consequences for his actions. These events are part of the historical record, and recognizing them is essential to understanding the full story of this community. Because history is not only what we celebrate, it is also what we choose to remember, to learn from, and to carry forward with honesty. There is a Spanish saying, Quien olvida su historia, esta condenado a repetirla. It reminds us that when we forget the past, we risk repeating it. But when we do remember, truthfully and with intentions, we create the opportunity to move forward differently, to recognize one another with dignity, to ensure that every storyteller is seen, and to affirm that today, we stand as one community. Equal in value, connected by a shared history, we choose to honor with understanding. Today, our history isn't just in preserved buildings or historic designations. It lives in the people who keep shaping this community and embracing diversity and inclusion. The story of Alachua isn't just a single moment in time. It's a story written in layers. The city of Alachua is much more than the city incorporated in 1905. It is a living story, and we all have a part in telling it forward. The last presentation at today's city of Alachua is very diverse. We have buildings. We have ruins that they are being renovated. And the big picture is Miss Annette Johnson, the African-American lady, who moved into the city of Alachua when she was three weeks old. And she has been living there for 70 years. The other person is Miss Paula Goodman. She moved from New England to the city of Alachua. The other lady is Miss Marcy. She's born in what was Czechoslovakia, a Republican chick. And that's me, Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage. So the inclusion, the forgiveness, and living together exists. Thank you. It seems like a good time. So if Chuck had to leave, he'll be back. But this seems like a good time. We received a letter from Trey Ashner, who's the chair of the historic commission. And he is asking that they recommend and support the annual observation of Alachua County's Community Remembrance Day. This recommendation is based on available materials and successful models and reconciliation literature. They believe that the annual observation day will enhance efforts towards sustainable reconciliation in Alachua County. And they are recommending August 19th be selected for the Alachua County Community Remembrance Day. It was on that date in 1916 that one of the most heinous acts of local racial violence occurred when the Newberry Six were lynched. The date of August 19th will serve as a reminder of the racial terror that existed locally and help promote reconciliation through recognizing these events and foster healing. So he asked that somebody would make that motion and then we could recognize August 19th. So moved. Second. Got a motion and a second. All right. Any comments? Yeah. Mr. Chair, may I speak to it? Sure. The DEI bill that is on the governor's desk now may prohibit us from doing this after January 1st of 2027. If you want to do it before then, we can set a date for that. We'll be coming back to you to explain the full request of the DEI bill. How about if we refer this request to the attorney? I guess I don't think this is a DEI issue. This is an issue of history and recognizing a historical event that happened in our community and making sure it doesn't happen again. It doesn't sound a diversity and equity question. It's a question of something that actually happened and us remembering it. So I can't imagine that this would be certain. So we will share the bill with you. It is very expansive. It isn't just under the definition of DEI. It has a number of prohibitions, one of which is the recognition of anything other than what basically is federal holidays and state holidays. Yeah. I love the small government folks who have decided they're going to use sort of all kinds of law. If we could maybe refer this to staff to look into and see if that's something we are legally allowed to do. Well, we are legally allowed to do it until next year, until 2027. So I guess I would ask if we could go ahead and schedule that date for this year and ask staff to look at the future of how we might do that. Does that work for you, Madam Attorney? Yes, sir. You okay? Okay. We got a motion. Do I hear a second to that? I second. Motion and a second. Any discussion to the motion? Now's the time. Yep. Come on up, Ms. Lee. Give us your thoughts. Hello, Patricia Lee. Thank you, Commissioner Pizzi for bringing up the fact that this is about history. It's also about education. And no matter how the state officers, I'll put it that way, try to depress the education of people in our community, I don't think we should oddly stand by and let that happen. So we need to have some proactive action in terms of number one, addressing this bill, its contents and what have you. And I haven't had an opportunity to read it as of yet, but I would certainly be willing to do all that I can to make sure that yet another thing that we fought so hard to get with regards to equality and justice and the we the people definition does not disappear at the hands of wannabe dictators. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lee. Anyone else? Back to the board. Any other discussion? Old Light? Old Light? Yep, sorry. I think what she's saying, too, is it brings to mind, it's like we the people need to be the people. So if we can take the lead in it without jeopardizing. But I really would like to see that bill, you know, for all of us. Has the bill been signed yet? Has it been signed yet? Mr. Chair, as far as I know, it has not. Okay. But we probably should see it so we know exactly what we're talking about here. I've seen it plenty of times. It's a nasty bill. I've seen bits and pieces of it, but not the whole thing. All right. So we've got a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. 4-0. Commissioner Chesson out of the room. We will let him know when he returns. Okay. Thank you very much. Next up, Madam Clerk. Next, we'll have Alachua County Historical Commission appointments. Okay. So we're appointing two at-large citizens, then we'll appoint for a period ending April 2029, then another one for April 2028, and then we'll appoint an alternative. And before we do that, are Cynthia White, Caitlin Hoff Mahoney, Daniel Lorde, Colleen DeGroff, or Don Davis here? And if so, if you'd like to come up and give us your thoughts as to why you'd like to serve on the commission, that'd be great. Firefighters and community health workers, we're getting to you next. We're almost there. Hang with us. Okay. Don, come on up. Yeah, introduce yourself and give us your thoughts, and then we'll go ahead and do a roll call. Welcome, Don. Don Davis, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. I think I know all of you, and you probably are wondering why I'm rolling around on this walker. It's because I had a hip replaced three weeks ago. Okay. So I'll be back in regular walking mode in a couple more weeks. I'm interested in history, and I always have been, but I became even more interested when I began writing about it for the Chronicle newspaper. And I've done that for years, ramped it up a lot more since I retired in 2016, and I found that my interests lie a little differently than a lot of people who are interested in history. I'm more interested in the whole industry. I'm less interested in someone who built a fancy house, and I'm more interested in where they got the money to build it. And then I'm interested in what industry gave them that opportunity. So that's my particular bent on history. Smoking like a true banker. Okay. That's really, really good. Thank you, Don. Sure. And I was pleased to be here today because my niece, Katie Boston, called in. Oh, that's your niece. I never would have known. All right. Well, tell her we're working on it, and thank you for calling in, Katie. Colleen, you want to come up and introduce yourself? Hey, good to see you. You too. It's been way too long. My name is Colleen DeGroff. My family and I have lived here in Bainesville for about 18 years, and we have lived in Hale Plantation for all of that time. I want to be on the Historical Commission. Actually, no, not the Historical Commission. I want to be on the Historical Commission because I think it's really important that we recognize our history and share it with other people so that they're aware of what's going on. One of the things I was not aware of, you know, living in Hale Plantation, during the summer of the George Floyd protests, there was a movement in Hale Plantation to get plantation dropped from the name of the neighborhood. That did not pass. Apparently, I'm not queen of the universe. That didn't happen. But during the research of that whole thing, things that I learned was that, you know, the neighborhood is built on two-thirds of the cotton plantation that was Kanapaha. I wasn't aware, and so I just kind of fell into this whole thing. I wanted to know more about the history of the area, how we came here, the people who were there before me, what their lives were like, and I started volunteering at the Hale Homestead. And so then I just fell into the whole thing. I had asked the historian at that time. I wanted to know more about the people who were here at the enslaved. And she said, oh, yeah, it's in the ancient records, which I had no idea. Alachua County had the foresight of all the counties in Florida. As far as I'm aware, we're the only ones that digitized the files. And if there's more than that. Hutch had a lot to do with that. That's amazing that they did that. I went into super nerd mode and collected records for two years, and I put them together from 1815 to 1865. And it tells the story of all the enslaved in Alachua County that appear in the ancient records through bills of sale, wills, mortgages. So I guess the reason I really want to get involved is I didn't realize how much history there was in Alachua County as far as slavery. There was more than 50 plantations. There were hundreds and hundreds of enslaved people who lived here and labored here for free in the area and actually built the wealth of the area through the cotton planters. But anyway, here's the thing that I wrote, Alachua County black book. And as far as I'm aware, it's the only record that's been done by any county that, you know, documents the lives of the enslaved. And in most of the records, the names of the enslaved appear in most of the records. And so it's just been a thing where, you know, I've had descendants approach me and just say they just think it's wonderful because they're able to trace their family and stuff. So anyway, I just fell into this. I'm an accidental historian, and it's just become such a major part of my life. And I would love to share that with others and sit on the committee. Wonderful. I'm very blessed to have met you 18 years ago when you came into this community. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Sure. Okay. Anyone else that's wishing to serve? Yeah, come on up. I presume you are Daniel. Daniel, you have the floor. You're recognized. Hello. I'm Daniel Lord. I'm a Florida native and second generation carpenter and small business owner here in Alachua County. I spent the past seven years working in historic preservation and historic restoration around our country in Washington, D.C., touching on some monumental structures there, including getting to work at the White House, even though I might not agree with the administration that was present at the time, the Carnegie Library, and the congressional offices as well. I spent time in Nashville, again, in historic restoration for roughly three years working with metro government very closely on restoration, repair, and maintenance projects, and have been in building my whole life, and that is my interest. And I hope to grow my understanding of the histories attached to these structures, and I just want to see that they're accurately represented and maintained and shared honestly in this county. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for applying. Anyone else? Thank you for coming back to Gainesville. Yeah, right on. All right. So, Commissioner, maybe we'll do our top two, and then we'll do our top one, and then we'll see if we have an alternate. Does that sound good? Madam Clerk? That sounds good. So, if I can start with Commissioner Wheeler. Top two. Colleen DeGroff and Don Davis. All right. Commissioner Alpert. Don Davis and Colleen DeGroff. Commissioner Parizio. Don Davis and Colleen DeGroff. And Chair. I'll make it unanimous. I move we take John Davis and Colleen DeGroff for the citizen at large positions. I guess period ending April 20... Period ended April 20, 29 for John and 20, 28 for Colleen. No. Both of them. Both of them, 20, 29. My apologies. Okay. Motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. That motion is unanimous. Now, let's do our top one for the period ending April 20, uh, April, 20, 28. Okay. So, one citizen at large position with the end of turn of April, 20, 28. Can I start with Commissioner Alpert? Uh, Caitlin Hoff Mahoney. Commissioner Parizio. Daniel Lord. Commissioner Wheeler. Daniel Lord. And Chair. Daniel Lord. Do I hear a motion? Do I hear a motion? Move Daniel Lord for the citizen at large position, um, ending April, 20, 28. Caitlin Hoff Mahoney for the alternate position. Do I hear a check? Got a motion and a second. Thank you. Good motion. Anyone, any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Daniel, Colleen, Don, thank you. Welcome to the board. Thank you all for being here and for your service. And Ms. Hoff Mahoney as an alternate. All right. So, Commissioners, I'd like to do a little bit of agenda management. Next up we have our action items. We've got West End first and we've got, um, the presentation of the Camden Coalition second. Could we flip those and do the Camden Coalition first? Yes. All right. So, Madam Clerk. Sorry. First, we'll start with the Camden Coalition presentation. All right. And the recommended action is to hear the presentation and approve the recommendation. Chief, you are recognized. Good afternoon, Chair and Commission. Harold Theis, Chief of Fire Rescue. Uh, thank you for the opportunity today to present really our findings of, uh, that you assigned us over a year ago to take a look at. Um, you asked Fire Rescue to design a community health worker program, a model that builds on our mobile integrated health care program. So, we took that direction very seriously and worked to develop a model that improves outcomes for residents who rely heavily on EMS while making better use of Alachua County resources. We contracted with the Camden Coalition to support the design of this program. And so, Carter Wilson is here with us today. Uh, he has joined me to present our proposal. Carter Wilson is a subject matter expert. He is the director of the National Center for Complex and Social Needs at Camden Coalition, where he helps organizations and communities design and implement care models for individuals with complex needs. And so, today, what you'll hear about is you asked us a few things in that March meeting of 2025 to look at and to review some different things. Number one, how CHWs fit into fire rescue workflows. How could we incorporate the CHW into our mobile integrated health program? What our staffing models should like, look like, how this connects with the community, what it costs, and how we measure that success. So, the proposal today directly answers each of those questions. And I'm going to let Carter take over this presentation. I'll come back to close the presentation at the end. Carter? You're welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much for welcoming me to this day, but also to your community. I've gotten to know many of them over the past six months, and it's been a pleasure, and even today has been sort of a joy. Aren't they awesome? They're amazing. I mean, they're amazing people. Oh, I'm not even just talking about MIH. I've talked to lots of folks in your community, but let me back up a little bit. My name is Carter Wilson. I'm with the Camden Coalition. Camden Coalition is a community health nonprofit that, for the past 25 years, has worked to identify care delivery strategies for really complex populations. We do that in our own community of Camden, New Jersey, where we run high-touch care management programs as well as other social service programs. We manage the health and social health information exchanges for the region, and we routinely convene the cross-sector group of providers that serve these populations. And so we use those community programmings, that data infrastructure, and that relationship infrastructure to identify gaps in our collective care delivery ecosystem and work together to activate cross-organizational workflows. That's locally in Camden. We also are home to the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, of which I am the director, that works across the country to do three things. One, to identify the best practices that are emerging at the community level and help disseminate those best practices. The second, to develop training programs for frontline providers, managers, supervisors, and leaders of those programs. That works actually led by Gladys and Tello Allen, who just walked in the door. And then third, we provide hands-on support to individual organizations and communities working to activate these types of programs. That's what we're doing here today. So I've been working with the team for about six months, and the charge was threefold. To help the program, one, incorporate the best practices that we're learning from across the country. Two, to leverage the workforce and the workflows of fire rescue. And three, to address a gap that's in the Alachua County delivery system. So let's make sure that the program we design aligns with those three things. And for the past six months or so, me and Gladys have been getting to know your community. We've been talking to many stakeholders, including fire rescue, also those that were involved in the original community health worker program, those that helped design and manage it, as well as the CHWs that were employed by it and the organizations that hosted them. We reviewed the workflows of Alachua County Fire Rescue's mobile integrated health team, as well as the data that they have available. We also looked at the funding opportunities in Florida, particularly healthcare funding mechanisms. We talked to other MIH-CHW programs that are emerging in the state in Palm Beach and Dixie. We engaged statewide and national leaders, including the Alachua County Safety Net Institute and the CHW Collaborative of Florida. And we explored potential partnerships and training and in what's Paraline. That's a clinically integrated network, which I'll talk more about in a moment. In all of that, we use it to design this program. But I want to call out two assets that I identified that I think are rare in Alachua County. The first is a culture of collaboration. Your frontline providers, the organizations, and the providers that operate in those organizations have as part of their DNA to work together with one another. They recognize that it is interdependent. Do not take that for granted. That is not common. It evolves over decades, and it's very hard to create. It's a great asset. The second is the existence and quality of your mobile integrated health team. Sit it right here. Absolutely. They are a team of highly motivated, highly competent individuals that are providing servant leadership to your communities. They are team-based. They are compassionate. And they are in your community every day working with the most vulnerable. And they deserve recognition. They deserve the applause that they just received. And they deserve investment. And so that's what I'm going to talk about now. CHW programs take on different goals. Not all one, not all CHW programs pursue the same goals. The mobile integrated health creates an opportunity for that CHWs to advance individual outcomes for for utilizers of EMS services. Those utilizers have social needs, almost certainly, that are not best responded to in the context of a 911 call. But that 911 call offers three things. First, the call itself is data. Someone that calls repeatedly is either in crisis or perceived by themselves to be in crisis. And that is data to help us understand who we need to support. Second, the responding team, while they're not in a position to address social needs, they are in a position to see and understand what that person is living in, the conditions that they are operating in. That is valuable information that the team can use in response. And then third is there's a window of an opportunity that's created in those moments. For the most part, the people that we serve have a deserved mistrust of the systems we represent. But they are calling fire and rescue when they have an emergency. Yeah. That is a moment where they are asking for help. And what this program aims to do is to extend that help and expand on the help that's offered by having rapid response in that very narrow and important window of opportunity. So it's a great opportunity. It's a great use of this team. The core functions are up here. And they look like what CHWs typically do or you might think of. They're going to connect residents to benefits, an especially important role at this moment as Medicaid redetermination moves to twice a year. They'll connect to housing, to food, to transportation, the social services that exist within the county. They will support care planning with the individual and help them navigate to their appointments. They will provide direct support to that individual by providing health coaching and self-management support. And they will coordinate on behalf of that individual with the service providers, including primary care and social service providers. That's the what of what they do. But the magic's in the how and the spirit in which they bring to it. What we're going to be building at Alachua County Fire Rescue is one that's anchored in relationships. As I said, these individuals often have a deserved mistrust of the systems we represent. It's the CHW's job to punch through that. Because you're going to need trust, you're going to need that relationship if you're going to have them honestly reflect on their goals and what they want to achieve. If you're going to have them navigate and accept sort of the services that you are recommending and providing for them. And if you're going to get them to reflect on the behavior change that they need to take on in order to be successful long term. And so a good CHW doesn't just see a gap and closes it. They sees an individual. They see the strengths. They see the challenges. They see the supports around them. They see the tools that they have internally and externally. And they help prepare that person for long term success to continue to pursue their goals. And when the inevitable new barriers come, they know that they have the internal and the external tools in order to navigate it. That's what success looks like in a CHW program. That is a very hard job. And so one of the things we're going to be prioritizing is robust training. But the truth is that's only half the job. The other half is community engagement. It's working with those other providers in the county. I like to think of CHWs as the connective tissue between organizations. It's what holds it together. And you need that in the patient care. So you need that community engagement because these people have complex needs. They, by definition, receive services from lots of different organizations. And we need all those different organizations and providers swimming in the same direction. And so it's CHWs that can help coordinate that response at both a population level and an individual service level. But it's not just patients that they're seeing that's floating between those organizations. It's also information about the delivery system. CHWs and other frontline providers are really well positioned to understand how the ecosystem works together. Where those gaps are and how we can make improvements. And so we need those CHWs to be leaders in identifying those gaps and pulling together the priorities that they need in order to fix them. It's an ongoing quality improvement function that has to be led by those in the community that know it the best. So it's a two-part function for the CHW program. Measuring success. This is hard work to evaluate. We're going to think about it in three ways. The first is reach. Are we meeting the people that need it the most? How we measure that is, are the individuals we're serving, do they have complex needs? Are they coming from all parts of Alachua County? And do they reflect the diversity we expect to see in those that we're serving? Quality services. Are we doing what we said we would do? Are we doing prompt follow-up to those 911 calls or those hospitalizations? Are we developing care plans and advancing those care plans? Are we making connections with partners? And perhaps most importantly, are we graduating individuals? Are we sort of recognizing as a care team that they're ready with the supports that they need to continue to manage and pursue their goals? And then third is impact. Are we actually achieving what we set out to achieve? The first two will be relatively easy for fire rescue to capture and report on. They have a care management platform that will be adapted and expanded. So you will know everybody that they served and what services were provided and when and by who. Impact is going to be a little harder. We're going to start with patient satisfaction surveys. Those are really important. Did you build a good relationship? Do you feel better prepared? There are structured tools that we're going to deploy. We're also sitting on data to be able to look, at least at the individual level, impact on EMS utilization. Not robust statistical analysis, but pre-post is available. As the two-year pilot, which we'll talk about in just a moment, moves on, I think there will be opportunities for more robust evaluation techniques. I should also note they're not on the slide. We did review your community health improvement plan and there were related goals that this program absolutely addresses. And I'm happy to provide that list if that's helpful. As for funding, the program at least initially needs to be county funded. There are foundations that are currently supporting mobile integrated health that can be approached. And there are foundations connected to healthcare entities. So connected to the health systems and the managed care plans that should be explored. This program adds value to those entities and they would be, I think, very willing to engage those conversations. The long-term play is for contracts with those institutions. So Florida does not have a CHW benefit. So Medicaid managed care cannot directly fund CHW for CHW services. Other states do have that. Right now, they are able to bill for some services. Small amounts for tasks that don't need that licensure. However, they could also be funded through value-based payment arrangements. So because they're serving really complex individuals that cost the system a lot of money, health managed care plans and the health systems financially benefit, if they're right under the right arrangement, for you to work with those individuals. And CHWs can be incorporated into those care teams. That is not common at this moment, but we talked to the folks that are doing a lot of the advocacy work and the trajectory of CHW work in Florida is certainly positive and something that's going to be watched. In terms of pursuing those contracts, it is a heavy operational lift to be in compliance with those requirements. The fire rescue department is not currently set up to do so. One option is to invest in that infrastructure. The other is to partner with a clinically integrated network, essentially an administrative hub that contracts on behalf of numerous mobile integrated health programs on the same managed care plans. They can also do the same for health systems under value-based payment arrangements. That's all emerging. Paraline is the group that I mentioned at the top. They are entering California. They've had some modest success in other states, but what they're trying, they're specifically trying to represent mobile integrated health. For small teams that ultimately serve small numbers of individuals and numerous managed care plans, it's worth considering. And feel free to ask questions. We'll let you finish. We want a lot of questions. Oh, great. Great. All right. To your timeline. We'll be no sure of the questions from this board. Yeah. I have question number eight I've written down. Yeah. All right. I'll be prepared. Yeah. So imagine this as a two-year pilot. We're in the planning phase now. Community Coalition is under contract through April. We, the activation phase, anywhere between six months and a year, where we hire and train three CHWs and launch them into the field as part of the mobile integrated health team. That training will be both for the CHW certification as well as additional training that we believe is necessary for working with really complex populations in team environments. We'll then move on to improvement. Once that program is active, we've sort of practiced referrals and we've sort of worked out the kinks, then it's about evaluating. What are the referral opportunities that we think we can expand on? Where are we seeing the impact? Those kinds of things. And it's the time to continue those conversations with potential funders. And if that is successful and if we're seeing positive experience from those we're serving by the team and a well-running program, we're going to come to you and talk about what it would be like to expand the program. Right now, we imagine a fully operational team of five CHWs plus a manager. Admittedly, that's sort of back of the napkin guess. We're going to start with three CHWs, see how that goes, and then we'll come back with a more informed recommendation. Next steps, and this is my last slide and then I'll head it back to Chief Theis. Tomorrow, 60 providers from across the community are coming for a day-long convening. They took the entire day off to come spend it with one another. And they're going to do two things. The first is they're going to give us feedback on this proposal. Is this going to align with the needs that they know of in the community? Does it align with their operations? Does it advance their collective priorities? It's all not just about the feedback on the model but ensuring that that model fits within the ecosystem and that you have eye in from the remainder of the players that you're going to need for this to be successful. The second half, we're going to take a step back and we're going to look at the Alachua County delivery ecosystem as a whole and talk about where we see those pain points. Where we see opportunities that if we work together, we can make incremental improvements for how we work together. It's flexing that muscle of collaboration and joint quality improvement. The day after, on Thursday, 60 plus more individuals, some the same, some new, are going to come for a training. It's called COACH. It's a model we developed at the Camden Coalition. And it teaches individuals how do you build and leverage those relationships with really complex populations. While we do it in teams, it is ideally consumed by communities of providers for the reasons I've stated here today. All those providers are working with the same individuals. And we can either be working together in some common approach to this work or we'll constantly be fighting one another. So, Thursday is all about can we find a common sort of approach and identity and language around how we do this work to make it all sort of come together better. And we will be incorporating those guidance along with the Alachua County Safety Net collaborative to make a final recommendation to this group in April. And that's me. I'll hand it back to Chief Theis. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Carter is not going to go very far. He's going to stay right here. No, yes. Stay close, Wilson. Very close. Our recommendation is what we're looking really for is some discussion from the board on how this aligns with what you intended in your discussions with us in March and how you want this program to look. So, moving forward as an agency, what we would hope to do is to provide a two-year startup funding for the three CHWs. ACFR will work with the OMB staff through our 2027, fiscal year 27 budget process, which we're currently in developing right now. There's about $835,000 in funding that we can use that we believe will sustain us for the first two years. It's already been identified as community health worker funding. And so, we believe that we can use that to launch this program. Whether that program is really on the timeline of your direction to us, obviously, all these things will be coming back to the board through the EAF process to get positions approved and things like that. Continue to support the training and implementation partnerships, something we want to continue to move forward with. And authorize the engagement with Pearline for the clinically integrated network contracting exploration. Again, that would be an agreement that would either come through the manager's office for her signature or come back to the board for your approval. We'll need to see that agreement, have our attorneys vet that agreement before we move forward with it. And then request sustainability proposal. Really, it's in late year two, right? We talked about the first two years of this implementation phase. It's late in year two that we would be coming back with. These are the findings that we have for the first two years of the program. This is the direction that we need to head or what we believe we need to head in for the years to come. And so, that concludes our presentation. And so, we are open for questions. Okay, Chief, you've got a lot of lights on this year. Carter is open for questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great presentation. Mr. Wilson, thank you so much. We've got Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Pezzi. And then Commissioner Wheeler. Okay. Sorry, I'm writing down my last question. She's got ten questions because she had eight before you start talking. Okay. Some of these you've answered because I was writing them as we went along, but some of these are just my curiosity also. But first of all, how are we interfacing and working with the health department as we go through this process? I see them as one of our, you know, our basic community health. Yes. Do you know Charisse Britton? Mm-hmm. Charisse has been advising us throughout the process and is a co-facilitator tomorrow in the stakeholder meeting. Them, along with the Alachua County Safety Net Collaborative, have been thought partners throughout the process. And how does, and this is just a question that I'm curious about because it's been in the news so much, how are we working on community immunization efforts as part of this process? That's a great question. So we actually thought you were going to go to redetermination, which is what I brought up. So what's great about CHWs as cross organizational workflow is because they can be the workforce that aligns across sector, across organizations, across geography to respond to public health crises. So COVID was one of them. I think Medicaid redetermination rises to that level and immunizations in your example. So how you would advance that would not be out of Alachua County Fire Rescue. They would be meaningful participants at a table that is convened by the Alachua County Safety Net Collaborative or others. So really what we're trying to do is position Alachua Fire Rescue and Mobility Integrated Health as a responsive, active participant at that table, but not the leader of that table. Right. So they have assets, including the mobile health team and the vehicles and the relationships and the trust lots that they're going to leverage, but they need to do so in a coordinated way with them. It would be part of the gap that they would analyze in somebody's health care is whether or not they have adequate immunizations, perhaps. Oh, you're talking about the individual level, not at the community level? Both, actually. Sorry, at the individual level, absolutely. That could be part of it. We haven't gone into that level of detail in terms of exact workflow. I want to also talk to the primary care offices and the clinics that they work with on sort of what's an appropriate division. They don't have nurses on MIH, so we'd have to just look at that. I was responding more as sort of a community worker. No, no, no. I think they're very related. You know, my thought in my head is that, you know, when a community health worker meets an individual, they kind of go through this little checklist of things. And that, to me, is one of the things that might be on that checklist. The only revision I would make is when a CHW sits in front of an individual, when anybody's doing care planning, yes, they should sort of have those things in their mind, but their number one priority is to figure out what is their goal and how do I help them achieve their goal. You'll accomplish the others in the process. Yeah. You're trying to tweak. Well, right. I think it's kind of how you handle it. It's case management, right? Yes. Okay. And then this is another tough one. How are you interfacing with the mental health community in terms of mental health care? Because that is such a big aspect in our community. So I'll let the MIH team speak to how they currently do it. How this program advances that is by frees up time on the peer support specialists. So their existing peer support specialists, I think, new are being recruited now. So the CHWs allow for, the CHWs can focus on the social needs and the individuals whose primary driver is social in nature. If it is a primary behavioral health driver, the peer support specialists would lead that case. Okay. Okay. Now, to this county billing capacity idea. This might be a question for Chief or maybe even for Claudia. If we ramp up the ability to do Medicaid billing or other kinds of billing in order to help pay for this program, are there other places in the county where that billing could be useful to us? I kind of feel like there are. So, you know, if we're looking at using a third party to manage that through a contract, would we have access to them for doing the other billing that we might be able to do to offset the cost of other programs that we have? And that's, you know, and this is me trying to decide if it's better for us to build our own program or to contract it out. And I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, in terms of which is better. The Paraline group that we are talking about, that clinical network is focused on MIH programs. Right. So it's beyond CHW, but it is limited to MIH programs. And I feel like this might be an opportunity for us while we maybe could initially work with somebody like that. I feel like there's so many other places that this could, you know, our ability to bill for services could be beneficial to the county. And, you know, we work together, right? So. Mr. Chair, I can't speak to the other departments. I know in fire rescue and our medical building, we would want to keep that in house. We have been discouraged by our consultant attorney about signing managed care agreements with these different managed care companies for ambulance transport. I can't speak to community support services or any of the other departments that have the billing methodology. Okay. Well, it's just something to think about as we look at the recommendation. And then how are we going to measure, you know, you're meeting with 60 community partners, right? And the goal is that we're going to reduce their load by taking on some of these responsibilities doing community health work, right? And so they should be saving money. And so maybe they become a funding partner at some level, right? Possibly as part of a complex care team. I mean, could that be something to think about? And if so, how do you, how do we ask them to measure the financial impact of what we're doing? If we're talking about community partners that benefit financially from this program, I think you're, I would look at the clinics. Hospitals, right. The community-based organizations, I would not think that they save. No. No, no. Well, I'm talking about hospitals and clinics as being those partners, right? Yes. They are coming tomorrow, I hope. Yes. Some of them are, including the ones that were involved in the first round of the CHW program. So how would you receive financial reimbursement from them? So they can, they have mechanisms at their disposal. So they can just contract out for you to do case management. Mm-hmm. Or they can enter a value-based payment arrangement with you where if overall cost is reduced, you receive some portion of that. That tends to be the mechanism that some value-based payment arrangement, whether it's directly with you or you're just under a direct contract under their value-based payment arrangement. But that's the mechanism you would use. The clinically integrated network eventually could negotiate that on behalf of fire rescue, but that is not their current plan. Their plan is to go directly to state Medicaid. I will note that Dixie is doing something similar. They are contracting externally with a clinic that has a value-based payment arrangement, and they're operating under that. Excellent. Okay. And my very last question. Is it possible to do a ride-along, and how do you deal with HIPAA laws and things like that? Can you do, oh, like you want to do a ride-along? Yes, I want to do a ride-along. I don't know. It is absolutely doable. We do them in Camden. There are some release forms that you need to do. I don't know if the team has those set up, so I won't speak to them if they're open to that, because it is a sensitive moment in an encounter. So usually how you would do it is someone you have an established relationship. This isn't the first time you meet them. You have an established relationship with that individual. They understand why it's important for you to come out and see this, that they're actually contributing to, you know, the further development investment in this function. And they agree to have that person come out. That's typically how we do it in Camden. Yeah, because I feel like it's important if we have the opportunity to see how this is actually working boots on the ground. So thank you for this presentation. This is fascinating to me. I have a little bit of a health background, so I think this is super, super cool. And I appreciate it. And I appreciate all of y'all. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Stay close. Commissioner Prisia and then Commissioner Wheeler. Then I'll be up. All right. First, I want to say thank you to Chief and to the Mobile Integrated Health Team. You know, this has been something that's been near and dear to my heart since I came on the commission, the idea that we have a way for people to gain access to care in their communities, in the places where they live, where they do get to experience that level of trust and that level of understanding that comes with building relationships and helping you navigate really complex and difficult situations, especially for those that are the most limited in resource and tend to be our most complex people. So I'm very, very excited for this. And I really appreciate you diving in, even with your trepidation. I think you've done an amazing job of coming up with a strategy. You know, overall, I'm very excited about the direction. I see this as an investment in really in supporting local response so that we can. We're seeing big cuts in federal social services, as you've mentioned. Those are going to come down the pike even more after 2026 elections happen, likely. So, you know, we need to be prepared, and I think this is a great preparation for some of that. And I think it's a modest investment for something that will have a pretty major impact. I also feel like it's going to help a lot with care coordination, as you mentioned, and I'm excited about that. I'm interested to learn more about how you see that working. If you see, you know, we've talked a lot about Find Help and 2-1-1 and having these referral services or sort of software. And you're talking about Paraline is like a billing. So I feel like we also need the care coordination, referral, closed-loop software tools so that we can be sure that we're tracking that data and we're able to communicate across platforms. And I know Find Help and 2-1-1 have kind of been the ones that our community has aligned along. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you have them. And the last thing I'll say before that is that I think that that data is going to help us refine further investments in this program and understand where those gaps are. Because this is an investment in the community, and then it brings back information about where those closed referrals fall into a dead end, right? Where can we have the biggest bang for our buck in investing in social services supports, the nonprofit community partners that are doing the work that we can't do? And being able to see where those gaps are, the biggest or the most critical, I think is going to be a big outcome that I'm interested in. And so I guess I'm interested to know how you do that in Camden or what you think about the data management side of this. You're going to be disappointed by my response. Okay. Great. I'm sorry. I have not seen the Find Helps of the world live up to their promise. I haven't seen a single community that has, you can make a referral to a group you don't know, and it is received and it is closed. The relationship infrastructure continues to be the foundation of this work. It is still the social work binders. It is the sticky notes with the contacts of the case manager at the other organization. People. Yeah. People. Yeah. It's a people. It's a people infrastructure. Now, that does not mean that those tools don't have their place. But in order for them to be sort of really meaningfully effective, they need to be adopted by all the organizations in the county. That's the biggest hurdle. There's a new system, and we need a whole bunch of under-resourced programs to adopt it as a way to receive new individuals that they are not paid for, right? They, for the most part, are not paid for service. They are motivated. They are intrinsically motivated, so they want to serve people. But it's a big ask to make them adopted. So, for the most part, I have not seen them live up to the promise. What I have seen work more effectively is continue to invest in those relationship infrastructure. Create the spaces where individuals can come together and learn Mike's at that place, John's at that place, Mary's at that place. Here's the phone number. They learn the ecosystem with one another. It's not the most efficient on paper. It is the most effective in practice is to continue to invest and create those linkages while we figure out the data solutions. I hear you. I will challenge you to say that I think that the relationship infrastructure is as important as the data infrastructure, but I think that without the data infrastructure, you're going to have a really hard time measuring impact. And I think that at the end of the day, it's also going to be really hard for us to begin to do the work of really strategically doing the billing work as well. Because you're capturing the story of how you're filling the needs of these people and finding pathways for these people by tracking that data. So, I hear you 100%. I know because I've been pushing up with Find Help, like with the community through the Safety Net Collaborative, of which I'm a member, to try to think about how we do this. And, you know, you're right. Adoption is slow. But I think my hope, I guess, in some instances is that maybe it's something that our CHW team could take on is as they build that trust with those agencies as well as with the individuals they're serving, that they could build the trust to use Find Help or whatever we decide is the tool. But it seems like people are aligning around Find Help so far, and that's what we've been kind of pushing to begin to create that data infrastructure. And it'll be slow. I have no delusions that overnight we're going to be like, oh, now we have this great close-up referral system that works like a charm. But having something that we're working towards as we're working towards building the relationship and building the team, a trained team, that we're also building that ability to collect data in a meaningful manner rather than just in somebody's notebook with sticky pads. Because that's how it has been done and imprinted guides that get handed out, and, you know, that ends up being null and pretty quickly. So, anyway, just a challenge to the program. No, I appreciate it. And what I was, sort of, my comments were in the context of oftentimes communities will say, great, Find Help, 2-1-1, Unite Us, drop in communities and think that that answers the problem. And it absolutely does not. Yeah, no, it does not. I love your thinking around, actually, the best way to do it is a small number of CHWs and a small number of programs that commonly refer patients to another, start to use it, and then you grow that circle. Right, you just grow that circle over time. Make that the inner group, and then they can advocate. Yeah. Yeah. On the billing side, I guess I had a couple of questions. One, I think you're right. I think they're shifting expectations because they're shifting expectations on the hospitals and the clinics to have outcomes. You know, and so it's not just bill for service. It's what's happening. And so for them, they want to see less emergency visits. They want to see outcomes, and they're having to do social services. I mean, our hospitals are integrating to find help into their systems and actually for referrals to social services as part of. And their social workers, I think, are oftentimes leaning on our local partners to do a lot of the work because they aren't sure where to go. So I do think that this will also be one of those things where we can find that values-based proposition for our hospitals and clinics. I wondered if people have done any fee-in-lieu, like if these community health workers have other certifications like are a dietician or have nursing or other things, if they do have, if you've seen fee-in-lieu working at all in terms of billing for CHWs. So this program aims to recruit individuals with complex health and social needs that have some experience with the needs, experience with the delivery system, and a demonstrated ability to build and leverage the relationships. The previous CHW had sort of two CHW models of like who made a good CHW. One of them was what I just described, the other really came from that delivery system. And so I think you'd see more sort of nurses and people that have been cross-trained. We haven't been exploring that as part of this conversation. Okay. I mean, I would say that I think I have found that maybe the people who are coming in with lived experience could benefit greatly from certifications. And that could be part of professional development, right, is growing those certifications and those skill sets that would then allow for the fee-in-lieu billing and allow them to provide a greater level of immunization care or other care when they're on site. So just a thought. I fully agree. And I know the MAIH team also agrees that you invest in the people that join that team and try and create those opportunities and expand that value. Awesome. And that gets me to the Paraline thing. I looked at Paraline a little bit online when I got the backup. And I'm not, like, opposed to it or for it necessarily. But I guess I do think about, like, I've also been pushing food as medicine as an option in our clinics and for pharmacy. And that's another, like, sort of billing conundrum and how do you do that? Like, you know, how do you bill for health and exercise as a, you know, there's many of these things that we're starting to realize that, like, lifestyle decisions and the, you know, the indicators of health that ultimately drive our health outcomes more so than, you know, just physicians' diagnoses. Every, our, the things that we need to be focusing on for preventative care and for long-term health and wellness. And so I do think there are other opportunities around this billing. I don't know that there'll be Medicaid and, for the most complex patients, they may be internal for our own employees or, you know, or for some other population that we're targeting. But I do feel like there's opportunity. So I want us to keep an open mind on that front if we can and think about how we could benefit more broadly. And maybe our clinic is another person to look into. You know, we're, we're a self, we're self-funded insurer. So maybe we have the, some capacity on that front that we don't have in, in this front. I guess my other question is that you talked about training. Our original CHW program also had a two-tier training program, right? It had the certification so they could check the box, the state level, they have the certification. And if there is ever billing, then that certification will make, is going to be necessary to be able to bill. But they also did a lot of role-playing and hands-on and, like you said, sort of helping people understand how you're coming into somebody's home or into somebody's sort of complex lifestyle and they might be in crisis. Is that what you talked about when you talked about a two-part? Exactly. And I have a diagram that I can't, I don't know if I can show you. This was up if I could. That looks at the competencies of the training program compared to what we would say are the core competencies necessary for this work. And there's significant overlap. But where there's not is the teaming part. How do you work as part of an interdisciplinary team? The systems navigation is, I think, a little underdeveloped. And I think there's just a lot of the identity. What is my role in this person's life and in this workforce? And how do I define success? And a lot of these training programs are online self-paced, which are great and limited. And so our advice is to, one, train not only the CHWs and sort of the things that they need, but the entire care team in a shared philosophy. We're doing that on Thursday for a larger community. But I want the MIH team to have a shared approach to client care that the CHWs are aligned with. No, I mean, I'm really excited. I didn't know that this was happening. I just got an email about it from one of our safety, actually the coordinator of our Safety Net Collaborative asking, can we record it so that those that can't be there that day could have that information in the future? I hope that we can figure out a way to do that or at least figure out how to make some of the materials available, you know, and or do it on a more regular basis if it's annually or something like that so that we can continue. Because I think that that shared dialogue and shared language and shared perspective and approach is matters a lot. It's kind of like the mental health first aid that we did for so long. And we, you know, we really got sort of a culture of that concept, right, kind of embedded in the community. And I think it's made I think it made a big difference. And I think this could, too. So I'm I guess that leads to one of my last questions. And that is how you mentioned alignment with the Safety Net Collaborative and and these other organizations. I guess I'm interested to understand how and the chip and sort of how that's working, how how that's going to play out like logistically, I guess, because the Safety Net Collaborative isn't a thing. It's it's it's it's a group of individuals that's gathered together who all agree we need to be coordinated, but it's not an official thing. It's not an official thing, but it's people to come together and they seem to have a banner and a leader. Yeah. And so we piggybacked off that. Great. So Dr. Lawyer Geyer is obviously knows a lot. It's fantastic. Yeah. And has the trust and attention of a lot of those community providers. So we're using tomorrow's meeting to lift up her and those efforts as the leader, as the convener of that table. Alachua Fire Rescue is convening the meeting. It is not our table. And we're stressing that. So exactly how they work together, I don't know. What we want is Fire Rescue's CHW program to align with that group's vision, shared vision for sort of how it can incorporate within the ecosystem. So we're not trying to compete with it. We are trying to align and promote. That's great. Well, I will just say that that that entity in and of itself, just as somebody who's been a member of it for some time now, is in and of itself kind of growing and new. And so I just put that there as something to know, like a lot of the members are newer. Yeah. You know, they've come in the past nine months and they're still we're I think it's still figuring out what it looks like and how it works and how it builds its momentum and its power to make change in our public health ecosystem. So I just, you know, I'm excited that they're aligning and I'm interested to see how we do that in the long run so that we can support that as much as it can support us, if you know what I mean. Right. Because I don't want to see that collapse under its own weight or under expectations that we put on it that it can't manage because right now it's all volunteers. Okay. Yes. And just know that tomorrow in the afternoon session we're going to be talking about that and the Kimden Coalition offers some structure or framework for how to have some of these community improvement conversations, not around governance structure, but around sort of how do you structure the conversation about how do we work together, where do we make those investments. So we're going to try and pilot that tomorrow. That's great. I hope you can join. Awesome. Well, thank you very, very much for this. I think I've exhausted all my questions at the moment. There will be more. She'll be back. I've seen her work. Mr. Chair, on the recording side of it, we would love to be able to record some or all of tomorrow's event, but we're at the Sports and Recreation Center. I had a conversation with Mark Sexton this morning. It's just logistically being able to do that, it's very difficult to do, especially on an all-day event. Yeah. Just with the sound quality, the visual quality of being able to put something like that together. The following day is really proprietary because it's the coach training that Camden puts on. I do think that opens us up, though, with your comment that I would like to have a continual consultant agreement with the Camden Coalition so that even after this expires, and I think it's April that we're finished, we can continue to have an agreement with them that would provide that consultant and that continual training with us as we continue to build this program out. Okay. Thank you, Chief. All right. You conclude? I do. Commissioner Wheeler. Thank you. How long did it take you to get this up and running in Camden? 25 years. 25 years. Meaning we're still at it. Okay. We are not a MIH program. Our efforts look very different. We don't have some of the resources that they have. If you're asking how long did it take us to activate a community-based workforce? Yes. I wasn't there for it. Okay. Gladys, were you there for it? 25 years ago. To, like, fully develop a care team model. Okay. Your own Bill Nice used to work at the Camden Coalition. Him and Gladys worked together to develop that model. Okay, good. Okay, excellent, excellent. No, it just feels real complex. Yeah. The whole thing, the complexities of what you're describing to me make me tired just listening. You know, in terms of pulling together all of these resources, because the need is greater every year. And I don't, how do you, I mean, it feels like a whole, it's another network of social work. You know, what's happening, you know, on the ground in terms of grabbing these people up and supporting them, their health. Because, like Anna was saying, you know, with what we're seeing with healthcare right now, and unless we go to a universal healthcare system, people are going to be falling way through the cracks. How do you find these people? How are they referred? Are they frequent flyers that go through, you know, how do you find them? And what kind of caseload are you talking about? And to maintain that, because even our social workers here, we have a hard time keeping them, because the work is so overwhelming. Yes. Let me talk about that in a couple different ways. So how do we in Camden find the individuals we serve? We run a health information exchange. We run the social health information exchange. It is find help as the foundation of it. And we have that relationship infrastructure, those referral partnerships throughout the community that we developed over decades. So we have data that we can use to do proactive outreach. We have real-time ADT alerts from the hospital systems, so we can respond to the emergency room and to the inpatient units to catch individuals that we've been monitoring. And times we've had contracts with managed care plans that assign us individuals they want us to go out and find, and we find them on park benches, in McDonald's, under bridges, and we do those community referrals. So the answer is all the above for how you can find these individuals. The more data you have, the better relations you have, the easier it's going to be. The second question was? Your caseload. Caseload. There is not a single answer for that. So what we can anchor to is right now the biggest Medicaid investment into high-touch care management, which is happening in California. California for the past four years have been implementing CalAIM and their enhanced care management program, in addition to a CHW benefit. The UCHW is a little different than what we're talking about, as much more information and referral into care management. There, for the most complex, it's considered 40 at any given time as a full caseload. I say that to say that's the industry standard that's emerging. The reality on the ground is you could spend a couple hours talking with somebody and really make a difference, and there are others you can spend months and it really feels like you're running in mud. So there's not one answer. And I think a lot in the two years we're going to learn there's going to be an intensive caseload and there's going to be a lighter caseload. They're going to be really working deeply with certain individuals for months, and they're going to be doing light referral navigation for others. And so over the course of this process we're going to have to figure out what's the right combination of sort of caseloads and intensity for this program. Got you. And because they're vulnerable populations, too, I can see that dependency would be an issue, you know, in terms of becoming dependent on the service and hard to get them moved on. And that was one of the goals, I think, you know, to get people up on their feet and then moved along. And it seems to me that's going to be hard. That's one of the biggest challenges that programs have. They hire really compassionate, caring, engaged staff that just want to solve the problems in front of them. And so they go and they make the connection to the Board of Social Services. They make this appointment. They do this medication. And the individual has not learned any of those skills. They don't have additional supports that they can lean on sort of post this engagement. And it's a short-term intervention. And so they're graduated. And while they might have had some of those gaps closed, inevitably they're going to come across more barriers. So a skilled CHW, a skilled frontline provider, helps build that self-efficacy skills and helps surround that individual with a support system, professional and personal, that can help them sort of navigate the future. Good for you. I'm not trying to point out the negative. I just know how difficult it is. It is. You know, that's all. And being a public school teacher my whole life, you know, the needs are great in the community. And I see them through the, you know, in a whole different lens than some folks do. But more power to you. I'm all about it. We just, who are some of the people? And this is my last question, Mr. Chair, because I know you're anxious. No, I'm not. Take your time, Commissioner. Who are the folks? I got a whole slew here, though. I know you do. Who are the folks that you've got invited coming tomorrow? I mean, just a sampling. That was on my list? Is it a sampling of who is coming? I don't know that I'd be the best person to articulate that. But it's a lot of the CBOs, it's a lot of the county agencies that I know Sheriff's Office is coming. Come up to the mic. Yeah, can you come up to the mic? I'm sorry. Since there's two of us who had that question, yes. That's on my list? Give us the highlights. Can you hear me now? Absolutely. We have some people from the Sheriff's Office. We have some people from all the nonprofits. We have typically, I think we have at least one representative from most of the nonprofits coming. We have some people coming from UF Health. We have some people coming from the other fire departments, GFR, Gainesville Fire Rescue, Sheriff's Office, if I said them. What about HCA and the VA? Neither of those are attending. They are not part of the Safety Net Collaborative at this time. Neither of those are attending. Okay. Yeah, that was my question. People were invited, but they were not able to. Because I think, Mr. Chair, we had some issues with them when we were trying to get the central receiving facility up and running, you know, and we were having a little difficulty in getting the hospitals to work with us there, too. So y'all may have to work a little harder to try to get those folks engaged because, you know, they're the ones who are going to be seeing these frequent flyers and not have their fingers on them. We have Meridian. We have Meridian. We do not, it's completely on another side, but through the MIH, we are working with them, and we have some MOUs that are in place with Shands, and North Florida will start responding to them on the 13th of April with our other program. Okay. And you have Health is coming tomorrow. We do have a couple of people from UF Health coming. And can we pop our heads in? And from UF. Pardon? Can we pop our heads in? Absolutely. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, you conclude? Yes, I do. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Wilson, my turn. So I wrote down your title, Director of National Center for Complex Health Conditions? Complex Health and Social Needs. And Social Needs. It's an initiative of the Camden Coalition. Okay, that's an initiative of the Camden Coalition. So, man, I just feel so fortunate to have you and Gladys, obviously, bailed down from the Camden Coalition, to have you in our community. You know, we have the best community in the world, by the way, in case you haven't ever known that. We, Alachua County, I like to say, there's 67 counties in Florida. Florida is the third largest state in the country. It's the 13th largest country in the world. And in Alachua County, I like to say we have the smartest of the smartest in that state. 67 counties, premier university, three amazing hospitals with UF Health, HCA, and the largest VA in the southern eight states. So you are around a lot of really, really smart people. I like to say Alachua County has really, really big brains, and they have even bigger hearts. And so I feel really honored to have an expert like yourself that Chief has brought in to come in and show us what Camden has been doing for 25 years, what they were able to do in five years. And I would love if we could do it in four or three years. I mean, that's kind of how I feel about that. And you have an amazing board of support up here, Anna, Mary, Mary Helen. And maybe you've met Chuck, but he's also equally great. So thank you for being here. Thank you for leaning in and for staying involved. We aren't California. Our state is very, very different. You know, we did not expand Medicaid. I think we could financially show them why it would make a lot of sense if we had a legislator that would listen. But in Alachua County, we are listening, and I want to help with that understanding. And so I got just a couple of questions. Because, for me, it started back in 2015, Commissioners. I did a ride-along. I did a ride-along. I think it was Chief Northcutt that put me on that. And we went out to swag. And I was with an amazing group. And they said, hey, we're going to a frequent flyer. And I was like, wait, say that word again. I said, yeah, we've been here three times in the last two months. And I watched that team at the time. We didn't have these amazing servant leaders. I mean, that's what you are. You all are all servant leaders. But we had an amazing crew. And they were awesome. And they helped that person. And they did what they could to try to connect them. And we've come so far in ten years. But I just see where we're heading right now. And I couldn't be more excited. Because I think that's really the investment. So let me just ask a couple quick questions. Page five. You really blew me away when you said Palm Beach County and Dixie County. Like, you literally could not have picked two different counties in the entire state. And so I'm just curious. Are those the only two other counties in the state of Florida that's doing something like this? Or can you just explain to me what you found with those two counties? Because one's a small country and one's a small city. I don't know the answer to the first question if they're the only two. Okay. I would also say that what you're planning on doing is not what they're doing. Okay. And I mean that not as any disrespect to them or their efforts. Tell me what they're doing. What's Palm Beach County doing? Palm Beach County is seeing revenue opportunities. There are, you can receive reimbursement for home safety assessments that can be done by CHWs. Got it. So they're gearing up using existing staff to pursue those revenue opportunities. Through their fire rescue? Yes, through the MIH team. Okay. Both are with MIH teams. Okay. Dixie, they had an existing staff member that they converted into a CHW function. Okay. I am fine with both of these approaches. For us, we really prioritize recruiting from the community with lived experience and the ability to build really deep relationships. That's going to come at the cost of numbers served. Yeah. We are going to say, one, you need to be really well trained and you need to spend meaningful time. Big brain, big heart versus big wallet. Exactly. Got it. Okay. Another wallet, but I wanted you all to hear that. That's a completely different approach. I love it. But I'm also a CPA, so I do want to know about the numbers. We'll get to that. All right. Next question on page eight. So when you talked about impact, are we deploying resources appropriately, improving stability? Is this when we look at two years ago, this particular client had seven 911 calls, and since we've incorporated this, now they have two? Is that kind of, and so you measure the cost savings because each call costs a significant amount of resources? How do you measure that? That's what's immediately available. Okay. Is a pre-post where you draw the line at the initial engagement. So we know that. And you count EMS utilization a year before that, and if you have a year, you do a year after. If not, you normalize it, so you sort of, you know, so you're comparing apples to apples, just to show a reduction. Now, it's subject to regression to the mean. It is not statistically significant. Sure. Sure. But it is an indicator are we having those impacts. Yeah. Based on the data available. If you make additional investments, you have the data. Yeah. You have, yeah. So I think that last thought, Commissioner's request a sustainability proposal late in year two, we'll have that data. We'll know, you know, how many calls for those people, how that's improved, and here's how that saves us money, and that's why we need more investment. What other types of financial things could we look at from impact? If you, so the, what's challenging is you're never going to be able to fully evaluate the financial impact because it's on all those organizations we talked about. Yeah. For the most part, these programs are evaluated based on healthcare costs. Got it. So the next would be ED or hospital utilization. Okay. Did you prevent those? You would need a statistical analysis that the team is not prepared to deliver on and actually access to data that they don't have. Well, I just, I, no. Okay. All right. And then if you have contracts with managed care plans, they have even more data around sort of . More data around, okay. Yeah. They have all the data. But, you know, I have to comment a little bit. Go ahead. I mean, it's, you know, when you're talking about increasing healthcare, there's all these avoided costs. You know, the diabetic who gets his diabetes managed that doesn't end up with a leg amputation. And the, you know, it becomes so difficult to really look at the full financial benefit. Yeah. Because the financial benefits can be huge when you think about those types of folks. But there's no way to quantify that. It's the same kind of theory of what does it cost when we have a fatality on our roads. Exactly. Because the road is incorrect. So what does that cost? Yeah. But, I mean, I feel like there's a need to quantify this so that we can do it. But I think that really needs to be said when we provide this higher level of service. We are preventing some really serious healthcare conditions that could, you know, impact our community in financial ways. So, not to mention the, you know, personal benefit to those people. Then I'll chime in really quick and I'll just say this. Like, there are plenty of ways to evaluate and provide data that are qualitative, not quantitative. Scientists do it all the time. Yeah. Our sociologists and our psychologists. And so, there are many ways we can do that through listening sessions, through case studies, through storytelling that are just as important as data and numbers. And I know that as scientists and as accountants, we like to count beans. But I think that when it comes to changing the lives of people, the way that we tell that story and the way that we do that is with qualitative data rather than quantitative data, more than anything. I mean, I think the quantitative data is helpful and it's important. But I think the qualitative data is going to be where we get, where the rubber hits the road. And we do have some of the really, really, really fabulous qualitative researchers at UF right down the street. So, you know, this might be, because this is just getting started, it would be a great time to develop a partnership with our Ag Ed and Communication Department or our Sociology Department and talk to them about maybe starting a longitudinal study where they could actually put something together now. And it would allow us to track over time and get some of that qualitative data right out of the outset. Bill and I were remembering just yesterday, right, how we activated. So we are a data rich nonprofit. And how we did it was it started with an intern that was coming from, there was a student at Rutgers University who was just good at data. So we want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good. Yeah, so we want to do that. Yeah. We also got our hands on the health system data because they wanted us to reduce ED utilization. And so they were willing to share some of that data and that made us, we built from there. So. Okay. A couple more questions and I'll hand it over to my colleagues for a motion. Page nine. So you said, this is where you talked about partnering with Paraline. Is that who Camden uses? No. No. I met Paraline. Paraline, it comes out of Missouri, maybe. And then they just came into Florida. I think one of the early conversations was with Alaska County Fire Rescue. Okay. And they are specific to MIH teams. Okay. I am not endorsing them as an organization. I do not know them. I do think that these hub models can be helpful. Yeah. Until we have time or the ability to step up ourselves. And it's not, I just want to clarify, it's not just the operational requirements. It's also the contracting process. Yeah. So each of those managed care plans will have the kind of clients that they want you to serve in this way. They want to make demands. Having that intermediary can help buffer that a little bit. Yeah. Okay. And you already asked about who else was coming. So thank you for that. So, you know, I'll just conclude by saying kind of what we've always talked about, commissioners, that you talk about what's important, but we invest in our priorities. You know, and we fund those things at our priorities. And this is one of the things that we've all talked about is a major, major priority. And we brought in the best and the brightest to help us do it. And I think we've got the best and the brightest of the 60 members that are coming. I mean, Laura Geyer's great, but each one of those nonprofits, they are equally great. You have some really, we have some momentum here, and I'd like for us to build on it with that recommendation, plus whatever else you all want to go for. I'll add that those best and brightest, we took one of them. Kelsey Salazar is my deputy at the organization. She came from Alachua County. She was Laura Geyer's student. Yeah. She would have been on this trip and she would have led this engagement if she hadn't been on maternity leave. So she just got back. Congratulations. I will. And she's eager to come back and support her community. So awesome. Okay. Commissioner Prezzi. Yes. So I guess before I make the motion, I did want to just ask a couple of questions. One is, and say something, one is how are we coordinating with the co-responders? I'm sure it's very regularly and it's a regular process, but I guess I'm interested to know, and maybe it's a question for one of you or for Chief, how we see this program in particular. Okay. Bill, you're up. Bill, you're up. And you can go right over there, Bill, if you like. So we were fortunate to get all the co-responder teams together recently. Both GFR, our team, GPD, and ASO got all together. Obviously, we wanted to make sure that they were also potentially a part of this event. To your earlier question about access to mental health services, right, we work really closely with Meridian, but we also engage UFL and, you know, their psychiatric department plus FRC pretty closely. One of their people that's recently come over who's a licensed clinical social worker and is helping to develop those relationships. He will be a part of this event as well. So we know that we're only as good as our partners. And so, you know, we're reaching out to everybody that the team really engaged in the very beginning of us getting our name out there to come to the table, because they're the people that are going to help stand up this work. And so, you know, the co-responder teams, the hospital teams, we engage deeply with case management in hospitals, social workers. We were in and out of the hospital on Friday for multiple people. I know we can do this work, and we know that we're going to be building really strong relationships with everybody. The co-responders are just one part of that. Okay. I guess the other question I had is, I don't know if this is a thing yet, but, you know, we have frequent flyer callers to 9-1-1. I'm sure we also have frequent flyer callers to 9-8-8. And I don't know how we're, we are the manager of 9-8-8 here in Elantra County, which is rare, the county being the, but I do think that's an opportunity for us to also be maybe thinking about how we coordinate with our crisis response team and our 9-8-8 volunteer operators and how we might be able to also take some of them under our wing. I know we'll already have a big list of people we could be supporting and helping, so I'm not trying to make it even bigger. But I just, as we have been seeing that mental health has been one of the primary sort of healthcare crises we have in this community, I want to make sure we're supporting that realm as well, to Commissioner Alford's point. To Carter's earlier point, right, so what we do is we leverage the experts in the field. So, you know, we've worked with the crisis center pretty consistently. Obviously, I'm a mental health counselor by training, and so if I'm working with somebody and I know that that's a resource, first of all, we always talk to our participants about 9-8-8, right, 9-1-1 for a medical emergency, 9-8-8 for a mental health emergency. And then, ultimately, we let them know that there are ongoing counseling services that they can get. They've reached out to us before, and we've gone out with them on calls as well because we know that not only is it a mental health emergency, but it's also likely a social emergency that's going to come along with that. And so, while they can really kind of flex in and make sure that that person feels supported from a mental health frame, our team can kind of dip in and start to go, alright, so what are all of the social things that we need to support this person, to, you know, kind of reduce that stress and all of those things. And so, you know, we're fortunate to work very closely with them. Obviously, we always want to deepen our relationships, but they are definitely somebody that we lean on. Okay. I did notice that Paraline also seems to be trying to, like, work on the area of, like, expansion of services in mobile integrated health, like some of that nursing or in-home care, like, you know, so that you can bill for more services, which I get, and I'm for if we can meet people where they are and provide those services and they don't have to, you know, I get it. But I also want to be mindful of the fact that, you know, we have some services like the mobile outreach clinic and the mobile maternal health that are very, very underfunded. I mean, they have UF's name on their side of their truck, but that's pretty much it. And they have a doctor that's assigned to them. And that those two things are, like, that's what UF contributes for the most part. The rest of it is all grant funded, soft money funded. And they are the primary provider of health care in our entire rural areas, other than, like, private doctor's offices that might be open in those places. Like, they really are the frontline workers. And so I want to be mindful of, you know, usurping them, undercutting them, working with them, making sure that they're a partner or a collaborator and that we're finding ways to coordinate with them and work with them on this as we're rolling these things out. And if we do end up, I'm not ready to authorize engagement with Paraline. I don't feel comfortable with that part of the motion. I feel like I'd like more information. Can I explain a little bit about why Paraline was brought up a little bit? So to Carter's earlier point about training, MIH programs across the state meet with ComHIC. Kendra Seiler, who is from this community, as a part of that organization that really brings together health care technologies and also is really leading with mobile integrated health care teams. And so they have an annual conference. We were there in December, and Paraline was one of the organizations there that was explaining this clinically integrated network and how smaller programs like us or Dixie County or even Palm Beach, that they can let somebody else who is the expert in that field actually start to negotiate these things and see if this is a workable model for the teams, right? I'm a social worker. I'm a social worker. I need to spend my time with individuals. I don't have time to develop the structures to better support us long-term. But Paraline does have some of that experience, and they're also medically based as the director, as a former EMT. And so we're just exploring whether that could be a potential option. But ComHIC also has a certification or technical training for CHWs that we think also could be something potentially important as we look to build, again, kind of shared training across the communities for mobile integrated health care teams and our team. Can I pass the block? Yeah, go ahead. So one of the things that I didn't ask that I've had some concern about is medical records. Does Paraline have access to a medical record-keeping system that integrates with the hospital's medical records or anything else? I know that they're aware of the health care platform that many of the partners use. I think that that would be a better answer for them. But I know that most of the partners obviously always express concern about how medical information is shared. But usually the ability to access, you know, Health Call is our health care platform. That is a platform that's used by other MIH programs within the state. But normally there would have to be safeguards in place, and I would leave that conversation to them. Well, yeah, obviously there needs to be safeguards. But I think if we're looking at trying to, you know, coalesce health care around an individual having a consistent way of accessing medical records that, you know, is consistent across all those agencies is important. Whether it's... Chief, did you want to add to that? Yeah, Mr. Chair. You know, the intention behind the day, if y'all would like to make a motion, you certainly have that authority to do so. I'm really not looking for a motion today. I wanted to make sure that we were on the right path moving forward with what the board's wishes were. My plan is that we still have a lot of work to do before we can implement, before we can go into the phase one implementation phase. Some of that is we have to work with HR to classify these community health worker positions to make sure that they're comparable wages. So there's a process through all of that that we have to go through. And one of those is also with Paraline. I want to make sure that our attorneys have the time to review the agreement with Paraline and also for us to just sort of check that out a little bit to make sure that's a direction we want to head into. There's still a lot of work to do over the next few weeks. We're going to get the final report in April after they have the stakeholders workshop really tomorrow and the coach training the following day. And so my plan is, is that we may not be coming back to the board with all of these things in one, but you're going to see these items come through your agendas, whether it's adding FTEs, whether it's asking for an agreement with Paraline, those types of things. So there's still opportunity for more questions and more vetting if you so choose. That's great. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm happy to make a motion to provide the two-year startup funding for three CFWs and ask you to continue working with OMB and to build out the sort of infrastructure that's necessary to make this program sustainable long-term. And then for us, for those contracts or those, like, formal relationships that we brought back to the board for further consideration. Do I hear a second? Second. Is that what you need? That's fantastic. Mr. Chair, just recognize that there's a limited amount of funds that's in that. There will eventually be a general fund expenditure to fund this. Which the last bullet, and you've changed to end of year two, is supposed to help with that request in two years. A year and a half. A year and a half. Correct. Mr. Chair, the initial $830,000 is already budgeted. It was part of the Revenue Recovery Act, so we don't need action to budget for this. We already have that seed money established. Okay, good. All right. We've got a motion and a second. Mary, Helen, did you have another comment? I just have a quick question about this group that you all have got coming in there tomorrow. Agencies like Central Florida Community Action Agency, they take care of housing, electricity, food needs, health service needs. You know, have you all included some of those support systems, too, with this networking? Because, you know, housing stability is, of course, part of all of the health issues, too. Yes. So the convening function needs to happen in sort of small subsets of the ecosystem and the ecosystem at large. Okay. Meaning those that are serving those experiencing homelessness or housing instability, they need to convene regularly. Those supporting children and youth, they need to because they're an ecosystem. This is about the broader. So fire rescue is going to touch a lot of individuals. Okay. So this is a big net meeting conversation. Okay. In order to get that feedback and the guidance on how this can help advance. Okay. And the care team does come, the continuum of care. No. Yes. So we have continuum of care. They come to the safety net. Sure. And our community resources, too. But we also have agencies that are federally funded and state funded, you know, that could also be a part of that team to help with the funding you're talking about. That's what I mean. Exactly. So what we called it, I think we called it CHW stakeholders. Like, if you are, if you either have a frontline team that works with complex populations or you have some of a function that supports those teams, then we want you there. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. And, you know, I'm always trying to make sure that people in the community know that there are resources there that could be accessed. That's all. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Alford, is it a hold light? That's a hold light. Sorry. Any more to discuss? Okay. Got a motion and a second. Anyone from the public who wishes to speak to the motion? Okay. Let's bring it back to the board. Any other discussion? Here's my only comment. This feels a lot like five years before we had a central receiving facility. Yeah. And this action that we're doing will require further actions in the future. More data is going to come back to us. But this board is making, in my opinion, a commitment. A commitment that will survive some of us on the board, many of us on the board. And I hope that we can continue to communicate to the community and to whoever's sitting up here that this is something that we started. It took Camden five, and they're in year 25, and they're still working on it. But this is a long-term commitment by Alachua County and all of the partners that are coming tomorrow. Thank you for spending your time with us to help our community. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Let the record reflect for future boards that that motion was unanimous. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you all very, very much. Appreciate y'all. All right. Commissioners, next up we got West End. Are you good, or should we take a little break? Let's take a five minute. Okay. Ed, you've been sitting here. This one was a little heavy. If you can give us, let's just, we'll reconvene at 2.40. So, 11 minutes. Give us a chance to use the restroom and go potty. So, we stand and recess until 2.40. Ed, here's some Jolly Ranchers have one. Reconvene. I do. The county commission meeting. And, Madam Clerk, I believe we are on action item. Yes, action item. West End Park community engagement and master planning update. Okay. And, the recommended action is to authorize the following in accordance with the current five-year capital improvement plan. Hey, boo. One, approve the master plan as presented and authorized to achieve with phase 1A implementation. Two, authorize and proceed with phase 1B implementation. C, provide direction on how to move forward with the public-private partnership options. And, D, approve to move forward with the plan development amendment. And, that is the current recommended action unless you all change it. That's Jason Maurer, director for Parks and Open Space. So, we do want to amend that to only ask for moving forward with 1A so the restroom facility can be completed for world masters. And, then the other would be to start the rezoning process. Start the what? Rezoning. Oh, the rezoning. The rezoning. The rezoning. The rezoning. The rezoning. Okay. The only two we'll be asking for today. The rest will be presenting you our final proposal of what we came up with and then getting your feedback on this presentation. All right. Well, let's go ahead and do the presentation and then we'll get to that at the end. All right. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Ed Williams, Alachua County Parks. We're here today to update you both on our third round of public engagement for West End Community Park and our master planning efforts. As well as to answer your questions, get your feedback, and your authorization to continue moving forward. To start us off, I'd like to introduce Elizabeth Manley, landscape architect extraordinaire with Kimley Horn, who are our consultants for this project. Thank you, Ed. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Happy to be here to talk about West End Park. I'm going to go through our overall master planning process, where we are in the master plan, and then implementation recommendations. As Ed mentioned, I'm Elizabeth Manley, landscape architect with Kimley Horn here in our Gainesville office. I am a representative of a much larger Kimley Horn team that includes civil engineers, transportation planners, transportation engineers. So all of that input is coming through this presentation as well. Although Commissioner Prizia already has praised the Wild Spaces Public Places program, I want to do the same. This is a Wild Spaces Public Places project. It's a phenomenal initiative. And just thank you so much to all the voters who continue to approve this program. So I want to walk through first kind of the history to date, and then just a bit of a preview of where we've come as far as our Kimley Horn engagement since last September. So this whole project, the county's involvement in creating West End Park, really started in August, started with, of course, the purchase of the property, and then started with community engagement very soon thereafter in August of 2024. So Jason and Ed led a wonderfully attended over 250 attendees from the community public engagement meeting, gathering a lot of input just on general issues, general desires, you know, what sort of recreation is everybody interested in. Then in March, World Masters came, so there was a huge effort and great push to create those facilities. That event went very, very well. And then sort of back to master planning for the overall park. So in April of 2025, staff led the second community engagement event. This was a more station-based event, also very well attended, over 100 people, over 150 people, I think. And it really followed up on input that was received at the first public meeting. And then, where staff came to you, talked about what was heard, what was listed as priorities, came back with a motion to move forward with master planning based on those priorities. We, Kimley Horn, were then engaged to support you all in this master planning process. So we started in September. Then in October, between September and October, had our site analysis, site visits, researching, kickoff meetings. And then had our first pre-application meeting or coordination meeting with DOT to talk about the median and potentials for crosswalks, which we'll get into later. Then we produced two different concept plans based on all the goals and objectives and input today. Presented those at a community engagement meeting in January. That was also very well attended, over 80 people. Had presentation followed by station, so kind of a combination of the two methods of before. Then Ed brought the input that we heard at the public presentation to Roscoe. Roscoe made a, generally approved of the master plan, supported the master plan. There was some discussion about the public-private partnership aspect and the golf facility options that we were investigating at that time. They supported more focus on just the recreation and not so much the latter. So we'll slow down and talk about all of that now in a little bit more detail. Going over those plans and then again, implementation for next steps. So just for those who may be watching who are not aware of where West End Park is, it is off Newberry Road. It's a 75-acre park that is currently owned by the county. It used to be an 18-hole golf course. It is directly across Newberry Road from Teoga Town Center. And it's surrounded by a number of communities that all were developed when the site was a golf course. We also have Jonesville Park just from a general context. Just from a, you know, where, where does this park sit relative to other Alachua County parks? Jonesville is a, you know, very active, active recreation park, soccer, tennis, baseball. So it's located there at the top of the screen. Overall project goals. These were the same project goals as were discussed with you in the last presentation in June. But just summarizing them up and just a focus on these goals as we move forward into master planning. So this is nothing new. We just took all of that input that was produced and received before and now carrying it forward. So this nice continual master planning process. So the project should still continue to be a host site for the World Masters event. Very excited about it coming back in 2027. And look forward to talking a little bit about that phase 1A to really support it. Overall develop a community park with a wide variety of recreational opportunities. So passive and active. Looking to still, with everything added, work around and enhance and preserve the wonderful natural character of the site. Existing trees, rolling hills, great open spaces. Really respect and buffer and connect to those surrounding neighborhoods. You know, so many of those residents are using the park now. So many of our county residents overall are using the park. We're seeing a lot of walkers, a lot of dog walkers. So just continuing to reach out into those neighborhoods, but also being respectful in the way that the park has developed in terms of buffering and distance off of those homes. Continuing through this process to consider whether public-private partnership opportunities are in the best interest of the county, specifically for those program elements that may be more operational heavy, more expensive to develop, more expensive to maintain, and that have more of a regional level view, regional level service for recreation types. And then maximizing safety and visibility along Newberry Road, of course, throughout the park, but particularly along that Newberry Road frontage. So per the input and your discussion with staff in June, organize the recommendations coming out of public involvement into different phases. I'm going to pivot a bit and say these, these really could be viewed as priorities. They were discussed as phases. We're going to continue to discuss them as phases moving forward. But if we think high level in terms of priorities, the most important priority was preparing for world masters in 2027. So specifically the need for a restroom, a permanent restroom, some associated walks, just some connections, and then the support elements that go into creating. Construction documents permitting and constructing those elements. Phase, what was phase two? We're now causing. Yeah, go ahead. I'm assuming that the funding for the world masters improvements is coming out of either tourism dollars or it's not coming out of the wild spaces public places. I just want to be clear because you led with wild spaces public places. I want the public to understand that we're not paying for those improvements with wild spaces money. We're paying for those with other funds, correct? Correct. Great point. Depending on the cost of the restroom, it could be a little bit of both. But the majority, we have about 226K, I think, in round numbers that was left over from the dollars that were allocated to the development for the first world masters. So we'd hope to spend that. That will pay for the restroom, we think. And then the supporting elements, you know, may come out of wild spaces. But supporting elements includes architectural drawings, not expanding the parking lot. It does not include expanding the parking lot. Okay. There is a site element when you contract with the vendor to come in and put this restroom down. You have to hire a site contractor to go ahead and prep the site, do the compaction and leveling and whatnot, proper grading, and then they come in and set the restroom down on that. And the restroom vendor takes care of all the utilities inside the building envelope, and we have to connect to the utilities outside of that envelope. Which is GRU in this case. Correct. So the support elements, the 170 and the 220, it's all for bathroom. On the budget. Where do you see those numbers? World Masters infrastructure budget. Yes. Yes. Well, yes. Okay. We will get to that part. But, yes. I just don't know what the support elements. Yes. Yes. Exactly what Ed said. The site clearing, site prep, soft costs in terms of design and permitting costs. Right here. The utility extensions, and that's it. And then the restroom, the base, the restroom walks. And, again, we'll look at it in a little more detail moving forward. What was phase two, where we're referring to as phase 1B in this presentation. And that really focused on all of the active recreational elements that we heard in terms of that initial public input. Playground, pavilion, pickleball courts, all the sports courts, the walking trails, perimeter trails, the arboretum, lighting landscapes. Support elements like parking in this case, site work, utility extensions. That was phase 1B. Phase 2, focused on passive elements in terms of the dog park, walking trails, disc golf at that time, various landscape improvements, and then support elements. And, again, we'll get into all of these in terms of the associated costs toward the end of the presentation. And then public-private partnerships that we were exploring going into this master planning effort were golf-related elements such as a driving range and pitch and putt course. Also, non-golf-related community center and event stage. And, again, these would have support elements needed to storm water, things of that nature. So, zooming out and going through the design process. Here's our site, just orienting everyone. This is the same general orientation we're going to have for all of the plans. So, just in terms of understanding the north is up. Newberry Road is to the south. The north of our site is highlighted in a brighter color. We've got the Tioga entry directly across from our one entry to the site. And then all those neighborhoods surrounding most of the roadways, if not all of the roadways in the neighborhoods surrounding are private. So, if we think of the inside of the site, and we're speaking to the various existing conditions of the site, just thinking of them in different character areas, that's all the colors in the bubbles mean. And it's just describing the various areas of the site. You know, we do have our one entry currently here directly across from Tioga Town Center. It is located between two signalized intersections on State Road 26 on Newberry Road. The one here at 136 that enters into Tioga, and then over here at Parker Road. I want to pause for a minute and just reflect on what we heard from our DOT pre-application meeting, concerning both the entry and the crosswalk. So, currently the condition is that there is a median here that is split. It has turn lanes. It is not compliant with current DOT standards. The current entry into our site, again, is right here directly across from Tioga, right at the median split. In discussing options with DOT, one option is that the median could remain as is, and our main park entry could remain as is. That is not desired. That would require a variance, and that would require further traffic study and further discussion with DOT. And, in fact, all of the options that I'm going to talk about will require traffic study and further coordination with DOT. So, there is a possibility it could remain as is, but it is not desired. The two options that were much better supported in these initial discussions with DOT were to redo the median to become compliant with current standards, which would be a directional median, so left in, left in, right out, right out. If that were required, that would be at the cost of this project, because this project is the project that is bringing new activity and new use and would be essentially changing the existing conditions. But no worries, there's a third option. The third option, which is, in our opinion, as your your park consultants, the best for the project, is the option to do two entries and to actually not use the existing entry. So, right now, with one entry, and staff experienced this, maybe you saw some of this, too, if you attended the field events at World Masters. One entry is really tough, especially when it's directly off of Newbury Road. You're turning in, you're immediately having to turn. This is tough on a good day. It's really tough during events when two exits and entries would be much better. And given that the one of the main goals is continuing to use this for World Masters, and we're going to talk about these other uses that are in line with public input, two entries, exits make a lot more sense for this project. So, in talking to DOT about that option, they thought that that is a viable solution. Again, needs a traffic study, needs more discussion. But this third option would be closing the existing entry on our park, not the median, leaving the median alone, adding two new entries. And we'll talk about this when we get into the master plan. And those entries are at a distance from the existing signals and from each other that they could be considered. That's better interest of the park use overall, better interest of the county in terms of lower costs, not as much permitting, more controllable because it's on our site, still working with DOT. But that was really exciting to hear that option. Pivoting a bit to talk about the crosswalk because we got a lot of great input about that. Of course, a lot of desire to have some better connectivity across Newbury Road. As I mentioned, we've got two signalized intersections. Those signalized intersections are at such a distance that there is no possibility to add a new signalized intersection between. That wouldn't meet the separation requirements required by DOT. There are crosswalks at those existing signalized intersections that are fine, that work. This one is about two football fields to the west. And again, this one is a little bit closer to Parker Road. And this one aligns more with that main entry of Tioga. Other options that we explored and discussed with DOT was a rapid beacon crosswalk, which is one I'm sure you've seen where you push the button, yellow signs on both sides, lights go off, traffic slows, you cross, like on 8th Avenue, for example. The speed along this roadway here, the posted speed is 50 miles per hour. That is too fast to allow that option. The next option we discussed was the hybrid beacon, which is that signalized type beacon that you may be familiar with on University Avenue right north of UF. So, there's a lot of red lights that flash, it is a signal, it is triggered by pedestrians on either side, it does stop traffic. Because it is considered a signal, it was still unclear and would take, again, more discussion with DOT, if it would be permissible here because of the signalized intersections in the proximity. But it is a crosswalk type signal, so the door is still open on that option. The other trickiness with that option is it would not be able to, you would have to locate it where it would not conflict with the turn lanes of the median. So, it would depend on what is happening with this median and where it could be located. It does not appear that there would be an option to locate it directly across from Tioga because of the median. And even if the median was changed, it still has to be open for Tioga. So, it could be closer than the existing signalized intersections, but it's not going to be directly across from Tioga. How far and where and what that means in terms of permitting and timing and cost, these are all things we're going to discuss with DOT further. But for the purposes of the master plan, the ability to have two entries for our park, not mess with the median should you so choose, and to be able to discuss further the possibility of a crosswalk was really exciting. So, putting that to the side, and we'll come back to it on the plan, I just wanted to point out some of these other bubbles and character areas. So, the purple are just nice open areas, very visible, and make a nice transition between the existing parking, which is number one, 80 paved spaces that was improved as part of the World Masters event, and number two, some overflow grass parking that was also used for World Masters, plus the existing drive, very well used. You see all the cars here in this image, so that overflow event parking is really important in terms of our planning. We've got the World Masters field here in the center of our site, and that is, it's not just a field, that's an internationally certified throwing field that is compliant with World Masters events. Then the old maintenance area, in this area near the trees, nice big central area, we're calling this yellow area the core, I'll keep referring to it when we move forward in the plans as that. Number six, the blue, we've got some drainage easements across the site, those are the low areas of our project. So, some easement restrictions there, but it doesn't really affect our master planning. And then in green, we're calling these the fingers, if you're looking at it and you're looking at a hand, thinking the fingers that are reaching out into the neighborhood area, so really wonderful possibilities there for buffering, the arboretum, other very passive uses. So, as mentioned, we developed two concepts utilizing that input that was gained as part of the first two public input sessions. They are very similar in that they have nearly the same program, but they are different in some important ways that I'll point out now. Concept A, located all of the, or the majority of the active recreation elements closer to Newberry Road. And you'll see these here. So, locating those more closely associated with World Masters, the activity and the energy and the noise of Newberry Road, have a good synergy there, brought parking in off Newberry off of these two, let me back up. We've got two entries as mentioned, one here, one here, we've got existing parking here, and then coming in, having that parking serve those active recreation uses all there. Dog Park more centrally located, big loop trail all the way around the project, that is in both of the concepts, generally around the perimeter. Concept A also explored public-private partnerships in terms of a pitch and putt, a little nine-hole course, and what that would look like in terms of a little putting area and pavilion associated with that. Whereas, concept B located that active recreation complex, if you will, more central to the park, and surrounded it with the passive recreation uses. So, advantage there is we were able to bring parking a little bit more central and more associated with that, buffering those uses to the adjacent neighborhoods with those passive areas, passive uses, pulled the dog park up closer to Newberry Road. In both, World Masters stays the same and is this nice central event lawn. But in concept B also explored the idea of an 18-hole disc golf course and how that would feel and how that would integrate. And again, on both of them, the entries are the same, the overall parking amount is generally the same, and the program is the same other than disc golf in B and pitch and putt in A. Also in A, I forgot to mention the community center and event pavilion and plaza, both also considered as public-private partnerships. So A had public-private partnerships, B did not, and then this overall organization. These diagrams are just reinforcing that. So, concept A, pitch and putt in the southwest, dog park in the center, core recreation that's active up front, B disc golf instead of pitch and putt, core area in the middle, dog park to the front. One thing to note from this diagram to continue to remember moving forward, we, again, talked a lot, a lot about public-private partnership and what is appropriate on that western side. As we explore different options even before these two concepts, whatever that is, if you should move forward with whatever that is, it really works best in the southwest corner, meaning there's such a nice synergy between the dog park and active recreation and how that all works on the eastern side or the more central side. But disc golf or pitch and putt or those kind of bigger uses, more passive uses on the west side really works well. All right, so we got a lot of really great input, again, station-based type input at our January public meeting. Overall, great support of the project. Concept A was more well-received than Concept B. Some specific input, just liking those active amenities a little closer to Newberry Road. Other specific input was wanting the dog park more central, more petanque areas than what was originally shown. Suggestion for a second restroom on the west side of the park associated with the either disc golf, world masters, you know, this 1A phase. Generally, appreciation for open space and passive use. We really heard about the same amount of support for passive uses as active uses, which was surprising and great. A lot of enthusiasm about the diversity of uses, you know, that we had, all of these different types of active and passive uses. And then in general, a preference for disc golf over the pitch and putt. And in general, a preference for passive uses of some sort over public-private partnership type uses. All right, final master plan. So bringing all that input together, refining, meeting with staff, working through different options results in the master plan. And you have this in your hands as well. I know there's a lot going on here. So the big one is the combination. Exactly. The one you have in your hand, the 11 by 17, is the combination final master plan for your input today. So we did what input asked us to do. We brought the active recreation toward the front. I'm going to speak to this in a little more detail in the next slide. We still have the two entries. We have the existing 80 spaces of parking. We have that drive that comes around. So if we're just driving into the park, maybe describing it in that manner, we're turning off of Newberry Road. We've got a roundabout that's a wonderful way to control traffic. It's sized for emergency vehicles, buses for events. It's great. It creates a nice flexibility in terms of exiting and control of this space for world masters. We come in 80 parking spaces here. That number is very intentional. It relates to the amount of cars and visitors that we anticipate based on a beautiful Sunday or Saturday morning, utilizing all of the facilities proposed. Coming in, we've got a little bit of a drop off at the end and turn around. Then that dog park is nice and central. We've got this beautiful multi-use perimeter trail around the entire park, a little over two miles. So fantastic in terms of everyday use, but also potential programming for 5K. Speaking of that, this dash red line is the 5K course that is required as part of the world masters event. So we've incorporated that, minimizing crossings over pavement as much as possible as is a requirement. Can that go into the throwing field though? It can. Yes, because not all of those events are happening at the same time. It has to be on an unpaved surface. And so we do show it crossing some walks just where we couldn't help it. And thinking of innovative solutions in terms of could those walk panels be removed? Could artificial turf per the requirements of the competition, you know, be added on top of walks? So snaking it through is compliant with the world masters event. And then in this final master plan, continuing to show the disc golf in that west side, 18 holes. We would work with the chain hawks as the county has on previous projects. They were present at our public engagement sessions and were supportive. And as part of the disc golf and also world masters event, proposing that new restroom with a little bit of associated plaza and pavilion here in our southwest corner. Zooming into the active recreation area that's been pulled up towards Newberry Road. Newberry Road, again, we're coming in off Newberry, that nice turnaround. We're parking. We've got six pickleball courts with an associated seating area. A beautiful playground to the scale of a Veterans Park type playground. New restroom to support this whole area. New basketball slash multipurpose court. Those petanque courts. You're seeing all these white walks connecting everything together. And all of those are organized around this nice central lawn feature that would be perfect for smaller events and just run around space. All very safe and surrounded, again, by these other uses. We've got the trail coming through. One thing I forgot to mention in the last slide is we talked a lot with the neighbors about good locations for connections into the neighborhoods. So we had more actually in the concepts and the two different concepts have reduced those and been very intentional about where those are located. Looking on the other side of parking, proposing the community center. That would be a public private partnership item. And then the event pavilion and associated plaza. They're all surrounding the world masters throwing field, which remains and putting a beautiful walk around it to really make it usable in terms of other events that happen between world masters. Again, we already talked about this a little bit, but just thinking of if there is a public private partnership that is in the county's best interest, it really is feeling like this area would be best. And you've got flexibility there that would not impact the rest of the design of the park. All right, moving on to the details in terms of budgeting and phasing. So started the process of phasing, thinking about implementation from several different perspectives. One, of course, what was the direction coming out of the June meeting at the start of our master planning? And then that was what we reviewed initially, starting with that. Also considering budget and cost. So, you know, we're working these numbers, these order of magnitude costs from two directions, you know, bubbling it up into the phase and then seeing what that looks like. So our first go through of this process was actually following the original phasing with those active recreation elements all in that phase 1B and running the numbers. And it resulted in 1B being a very large number, about $7 million. So our first 1A was $400,000 and then following the original phasing that was coming from the June commission meeting last year just was resulting in a very large number. We also concurrently were evaluating what we had heard from the public engagement session. It's different than what you're seeing. Evaluated what we heard from public engagement, which was this balance of support for public, I'm sorry, for passive and for active recreation. And really started thinking what is the best manner in which to propose the phasing that could get the most residents using this park, using the most of the park, not setting things up such that future phases couldn't be implemented easily. And we also started thinking about other funding sources, grant funding, like Land and Water Conservation Fund, FURDAP grants, you know, all these great state grants that can fund recreation. And recognized that those active recreation elements were the ones that had the highest chance for getting grant funding, especially if you had the ability to install and construct some of the support elements first. So we pivoted from that original phasing discussion and kept the idea of active and passive in their own phases, but switched things around a little bit. So that's what I'm going to walk through for our discussion. Before you do that real quick, where is the restroom on the east side? Oh, I'm sorry. I just missed that. It is located here. There we go. It is located at number eight. So it's not essential with all of the facilities. Yep. Okay. Got it. And it's the same as what eight would be on the west side. Right. Same prefabricated restrooms, the same type of model as at Santa Fe Lake Park, if you're familiar with that. So three units in each, Leesburg concrete. Looks good. Very affordable. Very consistent. We've done these on a number of our projects, as have you. So a really good option. Right. Right, exactly. This eastern location is really important in terms of proximity to the playground, but also in all these other active pieces. Pickleball people. Right, right. Can you talk about the timeline before you move into the details? What you're talking about when you say 1A and 1B, like what and two? Like which year? What are we talking about? Right, right. So the timing has been proposed to coincide with the availability of the funding as broken down in the motion. But... Bond funding. I don't know what you mean by availability of funding. So it is up to you all. Phase 1A has the most important timeline in that it needs to be installed and ready to go for World Masters in March of 2027. So for that, there's a definite timeline. For the others, if we are able to start Phase 1B's design and permitting concurrently, that design and permitting is going to take about a year. And it probably is a nine to 12-month construction window, you know, based on my experience with other similar parks, depending on, you know. Tommy, did you want to add something real quick before we get into that? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. Well, back when we were initially purchased this property and how to prepare for World Masters, the board at that time talked a lot about the limited resources and what the target for those resources were. And the reason why the presentation is in the format it is today is that, you know, we need to add this restroom component to make it a functional use area. But beyond that, it was our understanding the board didn't want to all of a sudden jump this entire plan ahead of all the other parks master plan that we've been talking about and working on and money has been going towards. And so we've identified the funding for the restroom piece. So all of these Phase 1A and beyond that, besides the rezoning and the restroom piece are what we're asking for today, we have the resources to do that in the current existing budget that we had planned pretty much, pretty close. But beyond that, these are more of a longer range plan. And a lot of that has to do with, again, do you want to reach out to public-private partnerships or grants, not usurping funding from a lot of the other projects that the board has been working on talking about for a long time on the list. So that's kind of the line we've drawn today and not asking to accelerate more along the lines of these are the concepts we're looking at long term. And if you're happy with the kind of the concepts or A or B or both in parallel as we continue to get feedback from the community and continue to work towards the needs, we will build that into the parks plan in the future. At some point, somewhere, it may not be in the near future. It may be only through grants and partnerships, and that's fine. But we don't want to just jump ahead of everything else just because it's a hot topic of the day. I guess I don't, if someone can explain to me, I mean, I'm not trying to, like, argue that we have to do all this now, but I am trying to understand this was one of the parks in the master plan. It was. There was a new park that was proposed. It was one of the most densely populated parts of the unincorporated area, and there was a park proposed for this area, and we were able to purchase it. So I guess I don't understand how you're saying it's not part of the master plan. It says part of the master plan. I said all of this phase two and beyond work were not in the original master plan to do now. The phase two, okay. Right. So we built, you're right, we built this as a regional. We actually moved this from a smaller park to a regional park when we acquired it for Road Masters, and we initially set it up and put extra funding in just to get it ready for that purpose, and now we need to get the restrooms done. But beyond that, just like all of the other parks in the master plan, the actual implementation of pickleball or disc golf or whatever it is, that is not funded in the master plan right now. So that's what I guess we're trying to make clear. This is a concept plan. The funding is not available yet to go beyond phase 1A. Ed, did you want to add to that? Mr. Chair. I guess I'll just, I just want to speak to my board for a minute before we go any further on that. Because this is like a ridiculous conversation to be having right now if we're not talking about funding this, because the public is hearing this, and the public thinks we're going to build this. And we have, we bought this park because we wanted to put a park in, and it was convenient that it worked out for World Masters that this location and this, this, and so we bought it. But like we have a public amenity that we bought with tax dollars, not so that we could do tourism, but so that people in our community could have a park in one of the most, again, one of the most populated parts of our county. And they need park support. And so I guess I'm not interested in moving forward with any more amenities for the World Masters until we're also committing to doing some of the park infrastructure, like real money. And I understand that I don't want to rob from Peter to pay Paul. I don't. Well, that's the question. So when do we get to talk about Peter and Paul and the master plan? Mr. Chair, if I might interject. I know. My understanding is that we have a million dollars in wild spaces funding allocated for this park in FY26. We have a second million dollars allocated in FY27. And what we were suggesting, if you wanted to consider this plan to move forward with the infrastructure, which we've identified as 1B, that would require another $2.8 million. And our suggested path for that would be defunding Industrial Park, what's called Industrial Park. It's not an industrial park, but it was donated by someone with industrial in their name. And so that would allow us to move forward with this concept to get the infrastructure in place. And where is Industrial Park? Say again? Where is Industrial Park? Industrial Park is on 39th near Spring Hill. Right now, it's a wooded lot. It's behind Caldwell Banker, the little building complex in there, a little business complex. And we own the land, but no other planning has been done. We own the plan. No community involvement has been done on that. As it stands right now, there are a couple of sort of nature trails that have been developed through there. Park staff go out on a regular basis to make sure that there's no fallen trees and to pick up litter. And that park has? Other than that, you know. That park also has a million in 26 and 27 allocated? It had a total of, with design fees and with implementation, it had $2.8 million budgeted for that. So, that would be, in our estimation, that's what would need to happen. And if we budgeted that in FY28, or budgeted for that in FY28 to come from wild spaces, in our estimation, the math works on that. Got it. Okay. So, Mr. Chair. How much acreage is that? Do you know? How much acreage? How much acreage was that Industrial Park? Like 50 acres? No, it was much smaller. I want to say it was like 15 or 16 acres, something like that. Don't quote me. But it was fairly small. Not a major park anyways. It would be a neighborhood park. Neighborhood park. If we're chair. Yeah. What I wanted to do is actually, let's get through the presentation, and then we can start throwing everything up in the air, if that's the right time. Is that okay? Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Yes, because all the pieces and parts are here, so then it's easier to- We're about to move them around. Yeah, right. That's fine. All right. I can already see that. And we've been moving them around just so you know. We really have, we've done this three different ways internally before this presentation. Again, trying to use these resources in the best way possible and to even out the costs and to associate those costs with the biggest win based on what we've heard. All right. So phase one B per this approach would be implementing the infrastructure, meaning the parking, the site work, you know, the general grading. There's not a lot of grading as part of this phase because it's more of those passive park elements. So working with the rolling topography for the dog park. Of course, working with the rolling topography for the disc golf. That's why it's going to be such a fantastic disc golf course. Keeping the existing parking, but doing the new entries and the new entry drive, bringing the new entry drive and roundabout in and doing our new parking here, our new 80 spaces of parking, and implementing the full multi-use two-mile trail around the perimeter. Is that a paved trail or is that a? Paved trail, 12 foot wide per standard multi-use trail requirements. So great for 5K events, great for us going for a walk and pushing strollers, riding bikes. And again, we've seen, it's a great amenity no matter what, but we've seen tons of walkers on site already utilizing the cart path, which is in really bad condition. So we looked at that too. Could we repair the cart path and kind of, you know, piece our way forward? You really, you could, but it doesn't make a lot of sense financially. So you'll see the associated order of magnitude costs here. That multi-use trail, you know, being a significant one. But again, one of probably going to be the best loved amenities of this whole project. Dog park, disc golf, the pavilions associated with the dog park and that small pavilion near the 1A restroom in the southwest corner. Roadways, parking, lighting, solar lighting, you know, for vehicular areas. Park would be typical park hours as per your standards. Landscape and then support elements in terms of site work, soft costs, permitting, you know, design and permitting costs. So around 4.8, should this be the direction you would like to pursue. Then phase two would include the active park elements. So again, phasing isn't just, everybody knows, it's not just about costs. It's about how are you going to implement the next phases when you have tons of people using this park, fully in love with the project and not having to shut things down. So that is possible with this phasing plan. And it equals out the costs again between the two phases instead of a lot of that cost being up front. So this would implement all of those active elements, the pickleball, basketball, patank, playground, the little event lawn, stormwater associated with that, walks associated with that. This would also implement more of the arboretum. I failed to mention the buffers would be installed as part of phase 1B, you know, as we're implementing that multi-use trail around. Fitness stations and some other add-ons in terms of seating areas around that multi-use trail, just that next layer of use throughout that trail. And again, overall, now this is filling in. And when you think about constructability, you can shut this whole area of the park off. You can carefully manage how things are installed in this back corner such that the park could remain open while these other improvements are being constructed. And then phase 3, but it's really not a phase, it's just whenever and should you find a public-private partnership that's a win-win solution for the county and for residents and for the agency partnering with you. Thinking of that community center here, 8,000 square feet, so probably about a $9 million type of center. And then that event pavilion and stage that could utilize that event lawn for various events. This cost would not be the county's cost. This would be you partnering with a public-private partnership. The grading and infrastructure and utilities are included in those costs for phase 1A and 2. Can I ask another question? Yes. Why, or what would be the impact of reversing those phases? Like having the active park elements go first and the passive ones which can be done more easily second? You need the infrastructure. It would not, it's not exactly switchable in that there would be additional costs for the space 2 to provide the entries and the drives and the parking. So maybe you're not doing all 80 spaces as paid, but you would need, you really would need all 80, given how much use you're going to have there. Well, there's all the parking in the front. You've got 80 here. Maybe you're only doing half. Maybe you're only doing the aisles and you're doing the spaces as gravel or unpaved. But there is a layer of drives and access that you would need for this, just given proximity and how far this parking is away. Right, right. And so that was, exactly. And that was the first approach was following the original phasing, which was the active recreation, the parking, the drives getting in. And that was getting up into that $7 million because anytime you're, and you all know, anytime you're doing impervious, you've got stormwater. Anytime you're doing impervious, you want to extend those utilities before you're paving everything. So it's, it's not, we, there is a, there is a, a solution there between 7 million and 4.8 million of providing some parking and drives and being able to do that phase first. But again, when we evaluated it per previous, it was very lopsided. And what in both of the budgets, there's a prep and support elements, which is a very non transparent thing. That's, oh, it's almost half the budget. What is the prep and support? So that's your demolition, your site work, your fill, your, your excavation, your fill, all your design costs, your permitting costs, your contractor markup costs in terms of them being able to mobilize and get on the job. It is stormwater utilities, lighting, some of the buffer prep. So with it's, these numbers are obviously bubbled up from a much more detailed cost estimate spreadsheet that we've provided staff. So we can, we can get into it in a little more detail here if you wish. So just let me just make sure we've covered everything. I believe so. I believe the next was just coming back to the original motion, which has been modified. Okay. So tell me how you're recommending that we change that. Jason Mauer, director for parks and space chair. We're just recommending moving forward. We'd like permission to move forward with phase one, a, which is the restroom, which I know we keep calling it for the world masters, but we do not have a restroom on the site at all. And as much as it's being used, I think that is a low hanging fruit to, we have five K's. We have Steven's already booking cross country races this fall. So we're getting a lot of interest in it. So we need a restroom. Yeah. So I think that's a given. It's a, it's a great first step for us and get rid of these borderlets that are still out there. Um, and then we'd also like to move forward with the rezoning from golf to recreation is, is all we're asking for a motion today. Okay. I think we still need to work with OMB, the team, get your input today on what you like, what you don't like. Um, how, you know, piece this thing together in a way like, okay, we do have a little bit of money here and there. What, what can we come back with and say, this is what the team has come and we'll discuss with the manager and leadership. Okay. So, uh, so we're about to give you that. I think we've got a bunch of lights on. So let's start giving input and then we'll see if we can cobble together a motion with some direction without a minimum. The two things you asked for, which I don't see any problem with. Um, all right. Commissioner Alford, commissioner Wheeler, then commissioner Prezio. All right. I'm, I'm texting my son real quick because he had a real interest in the pickleball courts. And I think he told me that there really needed to be 12. It's never enough. There's never enough. Well, he, he lives right there and he stands in line to play pickleball with his two kids every Saturday morning. So. At Jonesville. Uh huh. Yeah. Um, so anyway, um, I, I had, I had a few questions. Uh, I talked to people like my son with little kids and I talked to a couple of much older folks that had different concerns. Um, some really good input was, uh, putting all the noisy stuff next to noisy news. Newberry road was a good idea because they liked the idea of it being a quiet, peaceful walk and not having to listen to bouncing balls and bouncing babies or whatever. So, um, anyway, that was some good positive, uh, feedback. Um, so questions is there, uh, is the loop designed so that there could be a shorter one mile walk for people that didn't want to walk two miles without. Is there a way to foreshorten that loop as you're walking around and. So the initial loop around the perimeter is, is the one loop that we have proposed. It doesn't mean we couldn't somehow adapt it to make maybe not so much. It's all paved, but you could provide more of a, if you want to do a one mile loop, it's going to be paved and kind of a natural trail. I guess you could say. Well, yeah, for older folks that might not want to tackle a two mile walk, you know, or whatever. I just, uh, that was the question. Just to add to what Jason said, there are other sidewalks proposed in addition to that. Right. And I saw that. So, right. And maybe some of those could be made wider. If we could maybe have a map that says, if you want to do one mile go this way. Okay. Um, and, uh, there, I think I heard you say you're proposing rest benches along the way. That was also a concern. Okay. Um, how did you come up with the six pickleball court number versus 12? I don't see anybody waiting in line for, but I don't know that. Well, yeah, I know they're different. So we actually thought that we would hear more that of we want more pickleball, but actually what we heard from a lot of those who participated in the public involvement were they wanted less pickleball. We had shown six. There were equal comments for showing less or showing none, or why do we need more pickleball to some pickleball enthusiasts saying, no, we need more. We need 10. We need 12, 12 trends, of course, to tournament level facilities. Right. I think that's. And that was, and we, we talked about that initially, you know, is that, is that what is wanted here? You know, is that more of a, a Jonesville type park amenity of a real draw for tournaments and talked about that for pickleball and Patonk. And just from hearing input, that was not the desire here. There are a number of pickleball courts, as you pointed out in the surrounding neighborhoods that are well utilized. There are other pickleball facilities at Jonesville and city facilities. So this sweet spot of six courts offers enough that you're not waiting in line forever, but it also doesn't trip into now you're a tournament level facility with all that support and management and controlling of the courts. Right. Right. Right. And I think, well, actually my son just answered in an ideal world eight. The best example I've seen nearby of how to set them up is at Kohadjo Park in Ocala. Yes. That's a pretty nice facility. What's that? That's a nice facility. I was, I was there when we opened that. Um, we're also to add to that, we're adding five more pickleball courts to Jonesville. Oh, okay. Well that'll probably solve. So I think that's, that's not that I'm trying to solve that problem, but he was just an example of, of somebody that, um, had, had concerns. Um, are we going to be providing the bulls equipment for the talk? Are we, is that, or, or do people like carry that around in their cars? So basically they kind of self-manage. So it's kind of like disc golf. They, they, you just provide the space. They, they come out and they provide nothing about this except for when I was in France and I saw all been playing it on the line. I'm sure Mr. Scott would be happy to explain it to you. Yeah. Okay. Um, I was just curious. So, um, garbage cans, I assume, along with benches along the ways. Um, are, is there a plan for concessions or food trucks? Uh, so that would be a, like a partnership, I would say. So I'm, I started asking tourism and reaching out to like the first Friday, uh, like a truck, food truck event out there. Um, those kinds of things where we have maybe some music and it, cause I think it's going to be a great event space as well. Yeah. Um, and I think even to go across the street, I think they would probably partner with us on some things, you know, to host events over there. So that's a possibility, but that's really early right now. Uh, I, I figured, well, my, the reason for asking is if we're putting in infrastructure, you know, if you have a food truck, you can plug in or you can run a generator. And, and I thought, you know, if we plan ahead and think about food trucks, we could plan for those power outlets in advance. And, um, because that'd be a whole lot less. Oh, absolutely. That would be a fantastic idea. Yeah. So, um, I thought about that. Um, what's that? Mr. Chair, we, we put some outlets up front in the first round of improvements, um, just for that reason, so that they could have food trucks at the world masters. Oh, so a few of those are already there, but expanding them would be a great idea. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. And, um, oh, weird question. Um, do we have in any of our parks, do we have AEDs mounted? No, we don't have them. Uh, currently we have Gator baseball. They have one in their concession. We did not mount it outside, just concern. And then soccer, I believe same thing. So, but I am going to talk to risk management about, um, down at Post Springs, a new restroom. I'd like to mount an AED outside the restroom with signage. And then we can talk about that, see how that goes. And then I'd like to maybe implement that in some of the busier like Jonesville and places that, you know, it's can be readily available. Well, yeah, I was thinking at this particular park with like the real mix of ages and the, all the different kinds of activities that might be something to think about. Um, I know it's just a little thing, but just a question. Um, how did we on a completely different, um, note, how did we measure the sort of the quality, the diversity of our public engagement? How did we, did we, it's like my son didn't go because he had two kids to haul around. So, you know, try to curious how we, how we measured that. How we measured how successful our public engagement was. Yeah. Yeah. Question. Um, like how much breadth of impact and that kind of. Mm. So, so there was no, you know, there was no statistical survey or anything of that nature as part of this effort. Um, but it was trying to build on the previous effort. So this initial meeting, things that we, that were done, that we always do is trying to time and locate public involvement as convenient as possible for as many people as possible. So holding these events in the evening and not at five, like at six, when everybody can actually make it there and in locations near to the site. So these were all held at the ag extension, um, center out there at the IPA center, uh, near equestrian. Uh, so the first meeting was again, just open input, tons of people, tons of input, lots of time spent before our involvement. But we were talking at that time, just in terms of how to distill all that information. Then the second meeting station based to really dig deeper and to, to help parse out, okay, here's what we heard. We want more information on this. And that's really the key to successful engagement is framing up the parameters of what input is desired. So you really get quality input on those items that have been set by previous input. Then we picked that same approach up, except as, as we all experienced just a few minutes ago, going through the plans takes some time and there's a lot going on there. So we decided to do a presentation first, hold all questions and gain all input at stations afterwards. And that went very well. And it was a combination of both. So folks coming in had a familiarity. We saw a lot of the same people as the first few meetings, a lot of neighbors spreading the word. Uh, our, our last meeting in January had about 80 people. We're sort of like, Oh, well we have like 150, but right, right. It's a wonderful turnout. Wonderful. Especially for a park project. Yeah. No, I think there's a lot of enthusiasm for this. This isn't even my district. And I had a lot of people asking me about it. Yes. And we saw a lot of people saying, Oh, my wife and neighbor were here last time. I'm just going to tell them what happened. You represent everyone. I know I represent everyone. But you know, when folks at Archer are asking me about a park in Jonesville. Right. That's kind of. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I think that's, that's good. You know, overall, I, I felt it was as, again, as somebody who's done this for 20 years working in parks, all, most all of our projects have public engagement. It was a really great experience and just the quality of input and how long people stayed. You know, people were staying for two hours. That's incredible. So we really appreciate it. Well, the, the amount of enthusiasm for this project is really kind of really impressive to me. So that's, that's great. Um, one last question. How, how do we determine the number of restrooms we're providing for the facility? So that's going to be based on, you know, when you're having a play unit and, and that's going to have so many stalls. There's like a certain formula that we try. Yeah. I do. There's a formula. I didn't know if we were using it or not. So. Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of what they do. That's what they, they do. I don't know how to calculate it, but that's what they come up with. Like what it's right. Like you have to have a certain amount of ADA spots. Right. Right. Actually. And, and speaking of ADA, this looks like a great accessible park for folks in wheelchairs, which I think is awesome. So, um, overall I, I really, really like it. And, uh, you know, I, I really appreciate all the public engagement efforts and, um, I'm really impressed at the amount of, uh, community enthusiasm for this. So thank you. Thank you. I conclude. Okay. You conclude. All right. We've got commissioner Wheeler and then commissioner Brazil. Yeah. I like it too. I think you guys have done a really nice job of trying to take it phase by phase, you know, eliminating the way you have. I think it's smart. I really like it a lot. Uh, is there any advantage to putting both bathrooms in at the same time? Mobilization costs. Maybe you might say, but. I just wondered as if you've got a project going, you know, where you're building one. Okay. It's hard because you would have to run the, you know, all the utilities to that restroom. I see. So then, so then you're mobilizing and you're going across and then you're, yeah. So it wouldn't make as much sense in there. Okay. Um, I mean, I understand, but yeah, I think that just, you know, some, yeah. Okay. Um, and they're pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, that's what I was wondering. Sure. Yeah. That's kind of far apart. Sure. And, um, if you're going to do one, you know, why not do the other, except that I understand about the connectivity of all the. Yeah. You would have to run all the utilities to it. Sure. And it generates a lot more costs involved. Sure. So instead of the phase 1A being only 400 something, now we're, you know, 800 something thousand. Okay. I guess one for the masters is better than nothing, which is what we had before. Well, and a lot of people park up front and they walk around the park. So at least having one there, um, cause a lot of folks come in from the back part and they come in from their own house. So I think they. No, I totally get it. I just didn't know if there was any kind of financial advantage that we could, but. No, it'd be, it'd be different if it was already something there. Okay. Saving on mobilization would be about it. And also when we build that restroom, if you all could, you know, we're talking about partnerships. If we could get it landscape. So it looks really nice, you know, by the time we have the folks come in here too. I don't know the women's garden club. We've got master gardeners. We've got, you know, other groups that could take it on as a project to, to make it look very nice. And I, and I would say that throughout this park, if we could find sections, you know, um, you know, one of the reasons people love to go to Kanapa Hall gardens is because it's so beautiful, you know, and it seems to me that there's a large enough space that we could put native plants or for butterfly stuff, you know, when you could make it, uh, attractive from section to sections, you know, that we could do that. Yeah. Yeah. So it will be landscape. That's part of the process when we put the building in. Okay. We do have those clubs helping us at veterans like gold star memorial. We put in a lot of things around there. Okay. They've stepped up and just they've taken that on. Oh, good. With it. So again, I'm sure we could, we could get a lot of community involvement with that too. Is there, has there been any question from the community about fencing? Um, separate some that, that if we're asked about it, um, I don't think it's necessary. I don't, I mean, we've lived there. They've, you know, we're not planning on building anything right up against anybody's house. Okay. They lived on the golf course with no fencing for a long time. I don't, I don't think it's going to be an issue. Okay. Great. Um, we're going to try to use more natural buffering here and there around the park to try to, you know, people still want to have a view and so they don't really want to look at a fence either. So there's a, there's just a select few that wanted to request that. Okay. Okay. Good. And the one, one last question, um, or comment too, actually it's a question. When you all had your group gatherings, were there a lot of folks that came over from Teoga? I would say there was a mix. Uh, yeah. A lot, a lot of folks that will live right around West End or the big contingent and you did have some from Teoga. You had some from other places down the road as well. Right. So that's what I'm, you know, once we get the other part, the other part down in the east part, um, there, that there would be kids coming across that road, you know? So at that point, I'm really glad that you all are looking at accessibility, you know, safety of crossing that road. I think we've had that issue on other parts of town where kids are coming from one part of the community into the park area and make sure we need to make sure that that, especially at 50 miles an hour there. Yes. I know you're looking at it, but it's the kids coming across and, and people who may not walk as fast as they used to. Um, I'm becoming more aware of aligning myself with children, um, you know, as I move. And, uh, so I, you know, I, I appreciate you all including that in your, in your factoring. We saw it firsthand during Halloween. The people were parking in the parking lot and walking across to Teoga. And we had sheriff out there. We had staff out there trying to encourage them to go down to the crosswalks, but they just started, they would go across. So, so where is the crosswalk then? There is one across. Down by the light on the western part of Teoga where you enter the western part of Teoga. Oh, all the way. Oh, all the way down. Oh, that light. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, they're not going to do that. No. Not going to do that for sure. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do. Okay. I'm going to go and then, um, Commissioner Prizzi. So first of all, Elizabeth, it's so great to have you. I mean, I watched your work across the street when you were over there, but to have you, um, really designing this, uh, the thoughtfulness, the community involvement, um, and, and then how you shifted and, and kind of put them both together. I think is really, really great. So I want to compliment you on that. I would like you to go to phase one B that slide. Um, because the problem with such, with all the good work that you did is that we want it all. And, and, and unfortunately we, you know, we can't afford it all. And Tommy tells us what we can and can't afford. So commissioners where I am is I would like to take that 2.8. That was identified from the industrial park budget and move that right into this. I'd like that. If you all agree to be a motion that moves our budget from two to 4.8. And that gets us where we are now close to, instead of just having a plan that we can never afford actually having money that the public can say they're building. So that would be kind of the first comment. What I really would like to figure out, and I don't want you to do it on the fly, but I think, um, of this, I know we need some roadways and I know we need some parking. I don't think we need it all right now. Uh, and I know we need the multi-use trail and there's a lot of dogs. So I know we need dog parks. So to me, multi-use and dog park is about 650,000. Um, and I'm guessing you're going to need another 600 to a million, somewhere between another 600 to a million to get some roadways in place. Cause I want to do all the active stuff first. I want folks that have been talking about this park, the, the, the pickleballers, the, the, um, arboreum people, the fitness center, the playground. I want, like, I want to build that first. And so I really want to do the active piece first and then phase two be the passive piece. So I think we got to cobble together another one and a half to maybe 2 million. And I'm okay with referring all that back to staff and having them look at, here's all your other priorities. Here's some TDC money that we know we're going to have. Maybe we can bond some stuff and y'all come back to the plan. It says we can't afford 8 million, but maybe we can afford six and a half or six and we can move the active pieces first. So that's where I hope this board wants to go today and give that direction. Uh, because I really think that, um, having this plan now out in the public after all the community engagement and all of the energy that we've been building. It's to commercial previous point. It's really important that they can see, okay, we're building this world masters is coming. And when world masters is gone, all this stuff is in place and we're going to have ourselves, um, something that, that will compete with Jonesville for lots of people right away. Uh, and, and, and 27, 28. And so that's, that's kind of where I'm going. I don't know how you all. But, um, I, I have a couple of thoughts about that. I think, I think, you know, since we let her go and then we'll do. Yeah. I just, just to comment on what you just said, um, having dealt with a lot of construction projects, I think, you know, staff really needs to weigh in on the things that it makes sense so that we're not paying double mobilization costs for certain things. Um, that it, I, I really liked your thought about trying to get more of the money up front so that we can get further faster. I think that is really the big, like active first before passes. Well, no, I don't think we can think that way because they, they even kind of explain that because there's so many things that need to go into putting in the, like the stormwater and all of that, that kind of goes along with going ahead and doing the passive recreation stuff. So I, I don't know. I, I think it's a planning thing. It's not just like, let's get this now. Like what makes sense in terms of, you know, construction management basically. Yeah. Okay. Well, I, I, I would, I don't want to make a decision up here. I want to ask them to come back with that, but I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I. Or do you want to respond to my comment? If I may, Mr. Chair. So as I mentioned, we started with the initial phasing. We realized phase one B was $7 million. We then went through a second exercise of what could we pull out of that phase one A to make it more balanced. And what that looked like is somewhat what you're describing. It seems so that included the playground, a large pavilion, small pavilion, the pickleball courts, the Eastern restroom. Uh, and the maintenance area. And then again, the soft costs of site work, not soft costs, the support elements of design, permitting, clearing site work, the roadway to the point of the first two, the first two aisles. I know this is real zoom in. Like in past the basketball or the pickleball. Yeah. Like kind of getting, getting close, but not way. Yeah. Yeah. Like you don't need all that. So it was, it was the entry drive, the roundabout, this road, this first, um, bay, if you will, this second bay, and then just, uh, you know. So that other bay and then two would all be overflow parking. It would be grass. It would be overflow parking. Right. Right. Right. So it did not include kind of cut things off somewhat here. It did not include the basketball court. It did not include a tonk just to try and not, not because those aren't important things, but just to try and stay out of, um, this Northern area, just trying to condense that overall site work, you know, really to this, this portion. And what did that budget look like? That was coming to phase one B was around, you know, 4.8, 4.3, 4.4. So, uh, one A and one B together were 6.3, 6.4. So it, it's trending more in the direction that you were. Well, but yeah, I want that. That's what I want. I don't know what y'all want. What about the timing on this though? You know, as we've got the whole masters coming in, you know, this is going to jam them up again, like it did last time. No, this, this would not even break ground on that part. Okay. One A is the only thing that we would have complete prior to the start of the masters. Okay. That construction wouldn't start until after the masters. Okay. I think what nine, 10 months of, uh, engineering and all this other, and then before construction. Yeah. So that they won't even start until after. So that wouldn't be a concern. Okay. I didn't know. Mr. Prizzi's kicking me. Like she's like, everybody keeps butting in front of me, including you. So, all right. It's okay. Mr. Prizzi. Go ahead. It's totally fine. Um, I think, uh, I'll just say this. I think, you know, I, yeah. Thank you so much for, I think, you know, I think that, uh, I was actually going to say, I think the community input was, went really, really well. I mean, I think a lot of them would have liked to have been here today if they had known this was happening. Um, so that's a bummer, but I do think that like the overall like effort to just kind of do this big listening, everybody brain dump, get your big ideas out there and also kind of freak out about what's happening and then calm down and see it in real time and have the stations to really be able to have good conversations and digest was, was really, really good. So thank you all for the meaningful efforts around that community input. I know it was a heavy lift for a group that doesn't always do that kind of stuff. So thank you. Um, I, I too, like can want to see more of this done upfront, you know, I mean, yes, technically, if we're going there, Mary, it is my district or technically it's not actually, it's on the other side. It's Mary Helen's district, but it, but, uh, but this to me is it's Depot West. You know, this is going to be a park of regional significance. This isn't just going to be for the people who live in West End and the people who live in Tioga. This is people, like she said, people are going to travel from Archer and Newberry to enjoy this park. And I think as many of the amenities we can get up front so that we can have an active, awesome park that people can enjoy. And then we can, you know, I don't want to forget about the elements we don't do. I want to be clear about that. You know, if we can't do the baton courts or the basketball court upfront, I want to make sure that we still have a phase two and we have that plan and that budget so that we can know what that looks like and we can keep thinking about it. But, you know, I got an email and I, I think some of you did as well, um, from Erica Hernandez and trust for public land has a grant that's getting ready to come open in April specifically for public parks. Um, you know, we have, there's lots of grants and funding available out there. Um, so I think that in addition to us trying to come up and cobble together the money, you know, if we can put together successful applications with our consultants that we can put forward, um, for that kind of funding, I think we'll be able to get to that 6.3 or so. Um, and to me, other than, um, I will say I would love to see the multipurpose trail and the disc golf course happen upfront too. I mean, I know that adds another bit of cost. You didn't mention if those were part, if those were still part of the phase that you developed or if you just stuck with them. But I mean, I, I, cause I do think you're right. People walk out there all the time and there's a lot of walking going on. Um, and that the dog park feels like, I mean, it's only like, yeah, it's not very much money. And it will be, have a big impact on the, on the neighborhood usage. So those are two things that I, I would also love to see in that initial phase if it's at all possible. But I, I like can hope we can get there by moving the money. So I guess I'll make a motion that we, um, move forward with, um, phase one a, um, so that we can get the bathrooms there for all of our users now and in time for the world masters. And that we, um, explore phase one B having more of the active elements, um, in engaged with it, as well as, um, moving funding from industrial park in order to be able to have the money to do that. And to bring back a, a plan and, uh, and move forward with the PD approvals. Okay. We have a motion, a second. Um, and would one be include multi-use trail and dog park. Ideally. I mean, well, I, I've given them, give us as much as you can. We'll bring that, we'll bring that concept back of what we can, our new one be. Right. All right. We got a motion. A second. We've got commissioner Chesot and then commissioner Wheeler. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I, you know, I'm fine with, uh, phase B one. I mean, but I haven't heard from budget in terms of the funding. Uh, and I want to know, can this be done in phases and with an amount to it instead of just, you know, taking money from somewhere and just doing one thing and, and then coming back maybe a year or two. Years later to complete it. Yeah. I mean, people lose interest. Yeah. I know I would. And so if we're going to do something, I would rather have it like this year, we do this next year. We do this. The following year, we do this and whatever it is to complete that fourth or fifth year, whatever it is that has been planned financially and done that way. I mean, that's the way I vision it. People understand we don't have that money and I don't think we have the bond bonding of capacity either to do this. If I recall, but if I'm wrong, please correct me. As soon as the chair gives me an opportunity to speak to all these issues we're talking about financially, I don't want to, I don't want to, uh, I'm not trying to be a Debbie downer. So, um, I don't want to be either, but I understand. So no, it's really not. My job is to implement what the board wants to implement and see done, um, from policy direction. So the, the Westin regional park, um, create was kind of created its own life and in a part of the master plan at one point. I mean, that's how it kind of got started. Match plan actually, it was already adopted, which included a lot more money in the industrial park, by the way. That's where we got a lot of this money to start with, um, decided to make this a regional park. So that's, that all works. Um, the, the, the remaining industrial park money are right now, not scheduled until the 29 and fiscal year 30 budget years of the surtax. The last, it's actually the last two years of the surtax. So it's not like it's out there right now, budgeted available. It doesn't mean we do have capacity, Mr. Chester to your direct question. We have capacity to do some short term borrowing. Obviously it's going to increase the cost of money that you're going to pay interest, et cetera. Right. So you have some short term borrowing capacity that you could, if you needed to accelerate it. One of the, one of my concerns from what I'm, one of my concerns from what I'm hearing is that what we don't in the budget side, what we don't want to have happen is a false sense of expectation on timing. Um, these projects take a while, um, you know, we, we, as staff have felt a lot of pressure on the housing, what we're doing at budget in Scottish in tiny homes, because sometimes there's some unrealistic timeline set. That was a lot due to the funding source at the time that created that urgency. Um, but the reality of how long it takes to get permitting, to get site work, to get those things done is a multi-year process. So, uh, if the board's direction is, that's what, um, the motion that was passed is, then we need to build it into that. But what we really need to do is incorporate this back into the master plan during the CIP process, during the budget process over the summer. I've heard from multiple commissioners and from the dais that we would like to spend more time on the budget issues this year. And while that's happened, we can't decide to cancel a couple of budget meetings. So we're actually declining. We're down to about five now. And we, instead of expanding it, you know, um, and well, we're doing it from, um, we're trying to focus more time on the strategic guide implementation. So those have taken over a couple of those meetings we had planned. Those are coming back to how those are being built in the budget. I think Donna's coming with the transportation part first. Um, but that was scheduled for last, for last week and we're moving it to April, whatever it is. So I probably need to work with, from a budget perspective, we probably need to work with LaToya. And we may need to take some of your open board discussion meetings and some of those that are, that are kind of out there, but not really available traditionally for us. Some of the first meeting in Tuesday, some of those open discussion meetings to attach some more budget discussions. So my recommendation from that perspective would be, um, I agree completely phase one a and rezoning PD need to happen. Now they're in the budget. They're playing. Let's get that behind us. The second part of that is if you would please refer to staff, come back. Let's, let's take one of those meetings and probably the first one in June or late May, some around in there. And let's talk about that CIP. I know that we're working with Ramone's team as well and Ramone on, um, because things get changed. There are dynamic plans. There's pressures of where we have demand for, uh, whether it's paving, whether it's parks, et cetera. What happens with the, um, kind of the agricultural easements is kind of new, how we build that into our land plan, et cetera. All that's part of our five year capital budget and planning and financial plan. So let's take a look at that. Give us a chance to regroup, incorporate this with all of that so that you see that impact. So we can do this. We can go to that $4.8 million number or that $6 million number or whatever that number is within the plan without disrupting other major elements of the plan, if you will. Um, give us that opportunity. If it is sooner than later, we look at short term borrowing where we need it. Um, I know that, um, on the land conservation side, Andy's already approached us about accelerating for some big projects they want to look at. So we're already looking at those kinds of things, um, to develop. Give us a chance to come back in that first, maybe first week of June to say, hey, here's a revised look at a proposed plan that incorporates everything we've been hearing the Christian talk about. And then y'all can settle for them and say, hey, yeah, go you there for, or this doesn't quite meet what we want to do. Let's get you there. And this is how we get you there. So give us a chance for staff to get you there. Um, and do it as a, as a broader scale of that capital budget and financial plan. It makes it a lot easier for us to plan borrowing, to plan planning and get the engineers on board and know exactly when we're doing stormwater and what we're doing first, et cetera. Um, and I don't want to overemphasize there's, there's sometimes there's economy of scale mobilization. Sometimes there's not because when we do that, we may be delaying something that we need to get going now. So we just need to give our staff to work together to do all that together. And that will help us. Okay. Thank you. Chuck, what else do you got? That was it. I just wanted to know about financial part. I thought that was more and more important because, and I did, and I, and the reason I wanted it in phases is because once you started, people are going to keep looking for new things to happen. And if it takes two or three years later to do it, they lose interest. I know I would, I'd be upset. So, so question. Yeah. Question for Elizabeth and Jason. So, um, by moving the active to the front end, can you get back to us by that June timeframe, what the numbers would look like under this type of approach? Yeah. I believe we, and I agree with Tommy. I think, I think we just want to slow down a little bit and one egg and then let us kind of get together again, because it may mean, but can you do that by June? Yes, we can. Okay. I think that's all the motion. That's all the motion is asking. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh, commissioner Wheeler and then commissioner. I just want this enthusiasm to spill over to the rails to trails too. You know, I mean, it's, uh, because the, the contract been signed, they just need money. And so when we're start talking budget stuff, you know, we've got to make sure that we've got some money set aside for that. If we really want to see that through to the bloody end. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I'm going to say. Just remember that enthusiasm. No, I just want to say, I think the motion that, that was my point with the motion was to give staff time to go back and rework a budget that would incorporate more of that front ending of the projects. But I'm with you. I hear what you're saying. Like it, you know, I, I would like us to do something that gives us, gives people the ability to use this park in, in a near term. So to your point, I guess some of those passive elements do allow for some usage while we're doing some of the other components. And I get that. Um, and so I appreciate that that is an approach that you all took. I just think that there is a real, um, there's also kind of this like hurry up and wait mentality that we often have in government. But somehow when, you know, the world masters is coming, we can do everything in six months. So, you know, there, when, when there's a will, there's a way in terms of speeding things up. And I, I don't mean that we want to do things that quickly, cause I know that about broke y'all probably. But I do think that, um, you know, I, I find it interesting that it takes us years and years to do a project when we do it the old fashioned way. But when a public private partnership comes into play or when there's some big opportunity in play, suddenly we jump to, and we can get everything done really quickly. So I feel like we need to find a happy medium in there somewhere where we can like keep projects moving at a reasonable pace and, and, and do both, right? Have the time for planning to your point and make sure it's incorporating in the budget and also let people realize the value of this park, the way we envision it on paper in real time, instead of having to wait years and years and years and years and years. Do that, do that happen? So that's all. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So we've got a motion, a second motion is to approve the master plan. One a approve the rezoning direct staff to move that funding 2.8 funding from industrial park and then direct staff to come back to us with more of the active elements, which included the multi use trail, the dog park and see what of, of the original one B, um, could be moved in, moved back and bring us back a new budget. We'll talk about in June, um, along with everything in totality. And then we'll make some decisions during the capital budget and financial planning phase. Well, that's going to be, and I'm all for, uh, adding additional meetings by that. Yeah. By that meeting. Well, we'll add a meeting. Yes. And you guys can get, you can get all back to us by that meeting. Okay. It's not like you've done most of the work already. It's just a matter of taking what you've heard and redoing it. Yeah. Okay. All right. We've got a motion. Great motion. Thank you. Thank you. It's a lot of work that has gotten us to this point. Let's open it up to the public. Uh, anyone from the public that wishes to speak to the motion now is your opportunity. If you'll just introduce yourself and follow the lights, we'd love to hear from you. All right. Steve Scott, I'm chair of Roscoe. And I just wanted to mention to y'all how they've done such a great job. Uh, what I've heard, I'm just, I'm amazed at all the things y'all say. I've never worked on million dollar projects and stuff like that. Um, but the ideas that I've got for, um, for West End, it's just, it amazes me. I'm, you know, I was born here. I told you. The progress we're making is just awesome. Um, yes, West End is in, in a large area where it's affecting many residents. People don't realize that Gainesville stops at basically interstate. And, uh, all that is just urban fringe. And that's county, the county that we're, um, you're helping. And that's your constituent, main constituency. You also are Gainesville. Gainesville is also in a large county. But, you know, with the divisions of the, uh, with, with the funding, it works that way. Um, I am on the baton. And if you'd like to know anything, let me know about it. Let me know. We throw metal balls out. And everybody brings their own balls. It's all, um. You'll have to show me how to play. It's great. It's French bocce. Low impact. It's great for old people. It doesn't take a whole lot of energy. Bocce, I know. Yeah, it's bocce. It's bocce, but it's. But with a different kind of ball. With metal balls. Thank you. And a little piggy. And it's very low cost because you just need a flat terrain of sand. And, uh, you have somebody on staff that built the two. Gainesville has two baton courts. And the guy that you have on staff is the one that made those courts. So I had suggested just take the sand traps out there and put them all together. We're about to have. We're about to have. We're about to have some more. And guys. Steve, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service on Roscoe. All right. And I'll see you in a couple of months or two. Roscoe. Sounds great. Speaker, please. On the motion. Go once, go twice. All right. Let's bring it back to the board. Any further discussion from this board? Croquet's good too, y'all. Just saying. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Thank you so much. Good discussion. Thank you for the motion, Commissioner. All right. Let us move now to our public hearing. Madam Clerk. I want you to go ahead and get us going. Public hearing Z25-000033, Rock Ventures Small Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment Requesting an Amendment to the Future Land Use Designation from Institutional to Commercial. All right. No recommended action. The staff recommend that the board approve the zoning with a bunch of zeros 33. And welcome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is . Good afternoon. This item is a small scale comprehensive plan amendment for Rock Ventures. Application number is Z25-000033. The purpose of this application is to amend the future land use on a site about 1.26 acres from institutional to commercial. Approved, a variety of commercial usage would be allowed under that commercial land use designation. And there is also, following this, a related rezoning request to rezone the same parcel from Agriculture to VA, which is a commercial zoning district. This slide shows the site. It's in a southwest portion of the county on Southwest Archer Road. It is in the Archer Tower Activity Center, right in the middle of it. The slide shows that Archer Tower Activity Center, outlined in red. And that yellow star indicates the site. So there are a mix of uses here, which you'll see on the upcoming slides. So there, again, is the site outlined in red. Just to the south is the Canapa Presbyterian Church. They own this site, and they are looking to get rid of the additional parcel. They have other plans. They're moving on. They have owned it for quite a while. But they are looking to sell this site to another user. Surrounding the site to the east is UF Health. They have this site there, as you can see. And to the west is Grand Preserve Planned Development. And to the north, across from Southwest Archer Road, Mayfair, sorry, Mayfair Apartments. And also CVS, making that quadrant of the activity center to the north. The existing land use map, as you see here, this site as well as the UF Health's facility and the church have institutional. Institutional allows for a variety of uses, such as community services, religious uses, health, education. Then further out within the activity center are commercial and office uses and a mix of medium and medium density. Medium, medium, high density residential uses. This shows that it would be changing to commercial from institutional. Currently, the zoning map, as you'll see in the next presentation, this is retained agricultural zoning from well back in history. And it's just retained that it's not consistent with the urban cluster. But the proposed rezoning would amend that to a commercial use if this is approved. These slides just show what the site actually looks like. This is from the southwest looking towards Southwest Archer Road. This is from Archer Road looking to the from the northwest to the site. You can see the church there on the right. Again, this is from the northeast on Archer Road. And this is from the parking lot of the UF Health facility looking towards the site from the southeast. So staff analyze this small scale comprehensive amendment request. It is vacant institutional, as I mentioned, with ag zoning. So this would bring it into compliance. Archer Road and Tower Road activity center is one of the locations that has been identified in a comprehensive plan for commercial land uses. And this is consistent with those commercial land use policies. Our bases for approval are shown on this slide. Policy 3.1.2, future land use element where location of commercial uses should be located. Policy 3.3.1, future land use element requiring adequate facilities for commercial. Policy 2.2.5, which is the Archer Tower activity center, the intent for why that activity center exists. Policy 3.4.1, the conservation open space element, which is environmental resource assessment. And staff from our Environmental Protection Department have reviewed the application, found it consistent with protection of natural resources. With that, our recommendation is that the county commission approve Z2500033 with the bases that we've got in our staff report. And the local planning agency heard this last month at their meeting, and they also recommended approval with the bases that we've got as our presentation. Any questions, I'm happy to take. All right. Commissioner Harper. My only comment is about the historical nature of the church itself. That's a pretty old building, and it's got a lot of history. And I think my, you know, driving by that a couple of times every day, I've always appreciated being able to see that nice historical building back there. So this would put, in effect, when the land is sold, a commercial structure in the way of that. But there's not going to be anything affecting the church itself, right? That's all staying separate. And I see the applicant nodding. Yeah. Mr. Chair, it's a separate parcel. The church is on a separate parcel. Yeah. It's going to change what that looks like there for sure, which is sad. But I understand needing to be able to utilize the property and support a very expensive location. But that was my only comment is about that. Okay. But we don't have any idea what. There's no intent for it to be any specific use right now, right? It's just sell the property. So, Mr. Chair, there is a related rezoning request at the next presentation. That is the BA. So that's automotive-oriented businesses. Oh, that's right. You will see on the rezoning. Yeah, this is the separate thing. So there is a proposed business there. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's right. Oh, well. Okay. Can I hear a motion? Move staff recommendation. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Any public discussion? Okay. Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. That motion is unanimous. Sorry. Let's move to the quasi-judicial. We've got the clerk and the attorney that's going to give us some information, and then we'll do ex parte. Next, we'll have a quasi-judicial public hearing. Rock Ventures rezoning. Okay, Mr. Chair, I have a statement to read into the record. All persons wishing to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking during this proceeding. All persons have the right, through the Chair, to ask questions of staff or other speakers to seek clarification of comments, and respond to comments or presentations. All persons who present written materials to the commissioners for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of proceedings and official minutes. While we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding, Florida law requires that the county commission's decision in a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent, substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearing on the application. Competent, substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may only rely on factual information in the record to support their testimony. And in a moment, the clerk will call for parties. I don't believe we have any, but of course you can have someone request a party status today. All right, any parties? Is there anyone wishing to seek additional party status? No? Can I inquire the commissioners if you've received any ex parte communications, and if so, disclose them? No. I have not. And I have not. Okay. At this time, anyone wishing to address these items? If you'll please stand and raise your right hand and be sworn in. You will affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. Thank you. Okay. Everybody's been sworn in. You are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So again, Rock Ventures rezoning, same parcel. This application is Z2500032, and this request is to now rezone this parcel from its ag zoning to BA, which is automotive-oriented businesses. And so commercial use is consistent with that. Zoning would be allowed if this rezoning is approved. These slides, just for the record, show the location, and as I mentioned in the last presentation, what surrounds this. There are institutional uses, planned development, and also non-residential uses surrounding. The existing future land use map has now been changed to commercial, and this rezoning will implement that new commercial land use designation. As I also mentioned previously, the existing zoning is agricultural. This is in the urban cluster. It's in an inactivity center. It's on Southwest Archer Road. So this is inconsistent with the policies, the comprehensive plan, and the new commercial land use designation. So it will need to be rezoned. The request is for BA. It's a more intense commercial zoning district. You'll see on the upcoming slide which some of the permitted, limited uses are in the BA zoning. So this slide shows from our zoning table, the P indicates what uses are allowed by right, and the L indicates limited. So these are uses that are allowed if they meet certain criteria. And A is indicating accessory use that is allowed if the principal use is there. And then SE is a special exception. So at the Planning Commission, we did have a discussion about some of the limited uses. There was concern about the sexual-oriented media or sex shop, you know, that is allowed in BA. But there are standards in that limited use that require separation from churches. So that is something that wouldn't be allowed in this instance due to the presence of the church within that radius. I see limited under the drive-thru restaurant. I guess my one concern about having a drive-thru of any sort on that corner is its conflict with the emergency entrance and exit and people, you know, that being in such close proximity. So would that be in consideration if there was somebody that, the L means they'd have to apply for that? So there's criteria for what, you know, for a drive-thru. But I believe they would be accessing from Southwest 75th Paris on the west. So they should not have any interaction with the UF Health facility. Thank you. Our bases for the approval of this rezoning are shown in this slide. Rezoning will implement the new commercial land use. Section 40277 of the Unified Land Development Code, they have met the criteria for that shown in the code. Policy 712 of the future land use element, similarly in our comp plan for approval criteria for rezoning. And policy 3.4.1 from conservation and open space element, the environmental resource checklist. We recommend that the county commission approve Z25000-032, the bases that we have put in our staff report. And the planning commission also had a similar recommendation of approval from their last meeting. Okay. Thank you. Mindy, do we have a presentation from the applicant? Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and commissioners. I'm Clay Swagger with EDA. I have the pleasure to have this application before you on behalf of the Kanapaha Presbyterian Church. Rock Ventures was on the title slide. That is an organization that would like to purchase this property from the church. Mr. and Mr. Bach are here representing the church. And essentially, they have made a decision as an organization that that property is not needed for their operations. And the sale of this land would be extremely helpful for the future of their church and their operations and their mission. Of course, the rezoning and the land use applications have to be brought forward to you all to show compliance with the code and comp plan. This is right in the heart of the activity center for Tower and Archer, which really is where your comprehensive plan limits commercial zoning. You can't just propose commercial zoning anywhere. It's really only supposed to be an activity center. So this is right in the middle of that activity center. And it really essentially is just a, it's a size that would become sort of a commercial out parcel, the equivalent of one. So we think it's compatible with that area. You've got a state arterial road to the north, UF Health, and a stormwater basin for that on the east side, the church, which is the applicant. And then some multifamily on the other, the west on the other side of 75th Terrace. So we think it would be compatible right along Archer Road. We did have a neighborhood workshop, and there was no objection to the application as part of that process. And as staff mentioned, a couple of the concern uses are really, it's a moot point because there's distance separation requirements from a religious facility, adult uses and alcohol sales and the like. So that was viewed satisfactorily by the planning commission. They did recommend approval. So I thank you for the opportunity to bring this forward to you. If you have any questions for any of us, please let us know. Okay. Commissioner, any questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Commissioner Alpert. Okay. And then Commissioner Wheeler. I, since the applicants are here, I just wanted to say thank you for offering your church up as a polling location. That's becoming less and less common. And I just wanted to say thank you for that. So since you're here, I wanted to offer that up. And then I'm happy to make the motion to process recommendation. Got motion and second. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. I just had a question about Sunday operations, you know, and in terms of how that might affect the church use of their property access. It's hard to tell how much distance, you know, is getting in. So was there any conflict that they could see that might cause a problem? This won't affect the church parking lot at all. That's on their parcel to the south. So they don't anticipate any issue. In fact, probably an opportunity to share some parking with a nice new parking lot if a retailer goes in there. Okay. But it won't affect their church operations. Okay. Well, if you all know any other churches that have land like that, we're looking for places to put housing to, you know, for the church congregations to live close to their church. So thank you. I think you'll see more of those coming forward with housing on religious properties. Yeah. God in my backyard. Absolutely. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Thank you. You got a motion and a second. Any further discussion from this board? Thank you all for being here. You don't, if you, I'm assuming you don't want to talk us out of it. Okay. You'll bring it back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you all for being here. Okay. All right. Okay. Madam Clerk, I think that takes us to public comment. Yes. Nope. Yeah. Public comment. All right. So we now have a second opportunity for the public to address the board. For those that have not addressed this this morning, this will be your opportunity. You can go ahead and make a line there or there. We appreciate it. Okay. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close public comment. Moving on to county attorney comment. Chair, I do not have any today. All right. Mr. Manager, do you have anything other than what we kind of referred to you or is that? Yes, sir. We have one is the very public comment earlier. There was some confusion by the citizen on broadband literacy. Yep. That training was in conjunction. It was not a library effort. It's at the library in conjunction with Kinetic, which is actually used to be Windstream. And it's a part of their grant award that they received from us. Yes. So they're at over 50% completion. And they're coming back pretty soon with a report of all their areas that they're working in. So we're making a lot of progress. They're actually coming back to the local planning team first. And then they'll be coming to make a presentation to the board. But that literacy is a part of that effort. So that's why it is where it is. And there'll be others in other places as they are expanding. Obviously, Lock Loose is one of their areas. So we're looking at something over in Hawthorne, et cetera. So it is not exclusive to the Northwest. And then the item referred, Steve is here with EPD to address the issue. And Stacey, either one. So they're here to address it. Mr. Hoffsett or Ms. Stacey? Okay. Sure. Stacey Greco with EPD. So this is just an update on the Tomoka Hills proposed golf course in the city of Alachua. So the project has received an ERP and so an environmental resource permit and a consumptive use permit from the Sewanee River Water Management District. Staff attended the most recent neighborhood workshop on December 18th, and then the March 10th Planning and Zoning Board for the changes to Condition 1, which changed the project name and clarified that access would be granted to the Tomoka Hills Property Association. During public comment, we communicated our general concerns about water quality and water quantity in the Hornsby Springs priority focus area. The City Planning and Zoning Board approved the change to the condition with a 3-2 vote. Staff has been in contact with the applicant. They've expressed interest in continuing to work with us through their representative iron flag. It is our understanding that the next step will be another neighborhood workshop to address any site changes or zoning changes, but there's no dates planned for that at this point in time. And then real quickly, since I'm here, I'll also take a minute to provide an update on additional efforts in this watershed. The City of Alachua is requiring additional geotechnical work on the Terra projects, as we have asked and we've been working with them. We have contracted with Dr. Todd Kincaid of Geohydros to serve as an expert. As we move forward with that, he will be able to review that geotechnical work that the city is having a consultant do or that the applicant is doing. And then county staff, we're meeting with City of Alachua planning staff next week to just discuss general coordination between the county and the city. So that is my update, but you might have questions. Questions? So you're not recommending appeal at this point? No, not at this point. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler? Yeah. I'm just floored. You know, I'm just really floored with the water situation being what it is that Swanee River management would be so flipped and just letting this go through. Have we actually been in touch with Dr. Amy Brown? Yeah. Dr. Amy Brown is there. We were involved with the ERP and the consumptive use permit. And with that, with the consumptive use permit, I remember, you know, we definitely made the case, you know, is this in the public interest since it is a public golf course, but they did approve that permit. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm, I'm, so are they addressing at all the concerns? Do we have any, as people in the county that our folks that are on, on wells out there, do we have any, any recourse as representative of those citizens, you know, to advocate for them or for, or to put them on the city system? We're working on that. Yeah. So, I mean, this golf course, you know, there is a, I've been looking at our well monitoring network. Um, we did try to add a well that would be down gradient of the golf course. So we'd have a baseline data. Well, it's not going to work with our network, but I recently, um, made contact. The Northwest landfill is down gradient of the golf course. And there is, um, long-term monitoring data with that. So I've made a request to get that data so that we have that data set. That's something that we can definitely, you know, monitor, but there definitely are drinking water wells, you know, around that site. If those wells go dry or if they become polluted, what legal recourse do citizens have or the county on their behalf? Yeah. So, you know, the health department does have a program that, um, you know, if wells do have a total nitrate greater than 10, but that's pretty high that they do offer through the state DEP drinking water, you know, filters that can be added or bottled water to those people. Um, you know, I'm not aware of other programs that would be in effect there. Okay. What if the water comes out mud? I mean, forget the nitrates. If there's just, it's coming out mud or, you know, what I'm saying, I'm exaggerating, of course, but, uh. Yeah. I mean, the way the consumptive use permits do have language in there that they are not supposed to, um, impact any existing users. So there is that recourse that, you know, if wells did start to go dry around there, that I think there would be recourse through that, um. Um, a legal permit and to the people who are, who've got her consuming that water. Is that what you're saying? Um, sorry. That if the other wells went dry and, you know, able to, you know, point it to the new thing is the golf course that through that consumptive use permit, I do think there would be mechanism to address that. And it's my understanding that this, that permit, it did retire an ag permit that was active on that property. So it was an increase in allocation, something like 250,000 gallons a day, but it did offset an existing. So, um, it's not all new use, but there will be new use there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Anything else, Commissioner? Yeah. So we don't allow a second round of public comments with me. I'm sorry. Unless, unless they're asked a question, right? Unless the commissioner asks a question. Okay. Uh, may I speak with the citizen, please? Yes. You may. Let me ask you a question, Schlindberg, very quickly. Um, your, what, do you know what your consumption is like now? What is the water quality? You're watching your water quality? Have you, or you've got a baseline? Our water quality is perfect. They test it, I think, almost daily, if not quarterly. And they've did a more intense test. Um, so that's the answer to that question. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to? Yes. I thank you for asking. Um, I appreciate staff's, um, recommendation and the time and effort they put into it. Um, this is an opportunity to bring environmental concerns about this golf course to the applicant and to the city. Um, I think we played really nice last time and I did the same thing. I was like, can you be a good neighbor? Can you, um, have automatic leak detection? We don't have it. I asked them under oath, have you ever built a golf course on karst terrain? No. Like, it's karst. We heard earlier, 48% oxygen. If you, as commissioners who are in charge of my water, approve this appeal to $1,000. That's a lot to me. You set aside a million for Mill Creek Sink. If we find the money to appeal it as citizens, I hope you can work together and show up as an affected party again. Cause it will go to the commission. There's an election happening. It could be a different commission. They've never heard of this. They've never seen it in the city of Alachua because it's under 80,000 square feet. The planning and zoning board is the final say. They're not elected. They're appointed. And guess what? They're going to come back with a clubhouse. They're going to come back with structures. They're inching it. They're doing this bait and switch along the way. So all we're asking is if they're changing the one condition, if they change the one condition, the whole application's on the table. You can bring up anything that's on there. And when I said that and I had did a great presentation, they just looked at me like, good job, little girl, cause I'm not an attorney. I didn't have experts. And what's not fair to you is the public notice you got from the city that Miss Lieberman got and that Mr. Hofstadter got. It did not say it was quasi judicial. You showed up for public comment cause that's what you expected. You did not know that was happening. The first thing staff said, I have it on YouTube. It was deleted by omission. I know it's not illegal to do that, but it's not good faith. They really want this guy to have his golf course. I want him to have the golf course, but I want him to do the test. We spent 14 hours in the Terry April hearing saying geology doesn't have boundaries. We're saying, can you please test this pond, a little pond, make sure it's safe. They're putting a two and a half acre pond on this. We don't know if it's safe. And when we say you want to work with the applicant, I think it's lip service. And I can say that as not staff or an elected official because you objected to their permit with the water district. The water district objected to it. And they said, it's not in our aesthetics. That's on a recording. So is it safe? What's going to happen to my water? I don't. My house is paid off. I want my kid to grow up there. And another thing I brought up during public comment is, or during my status party, is they approved it April 15th, 2025. May 19th, 2025. Parkinson's.org said, if your well is within a mile or two miles, you have double the chance of Parkinson's. That's everyone in my neighborhood. That's new evidence. I brought a geologist report. New evidence. He's saying, please do 2D imaging. Please look at the ground. Well, no. But he's like world renowned. He wrote the book on karst. So all I'm saying is, if you can file the appeal, it'll save the public $1,000. And we will show up like we did for Tara. We will find the experts. We will find the evidence and just give it a shot. If not, I'll find a credit card somewhere. So I pay $18,000 a year in child care. So my litigation budget's about zero. But I love our water. My kid was here earlier in between pickups. She had to go to gymnastics. So it's your choice. I just don't want you to be, I watched the recording from September 2024 when you made the conditions for Mill Creek. You were mad. You're like, we missed it. This is your opportunity to kind of catch it because no one appealed it last year. And I was like, I'm a toddler now, but I was like baby into government and I didn't know you could make appeals. So anyways, you have until April 8th, but you're not meeting again. So thank you for questions. Thank you. Absolutely. Anything else? Steve, are we following that and EPD and all of that? We've signed off on all of that. I mean, we've said okay or no. Mr. Chair, Steve Hofstra in Environmental Protection. We expressed concerns. We did not oppose the application because the application was based on a single condition of changing, you know, the use party to the Homeowner Association as opposed to Tower Hill. So there is potential for some additional environmental impact. We don't know what those are. In fact, we don't know what the number is of this new association. You know, a challenge we would have to appeal is what's the basis for the appeal. We did not oppose the application. We continued to work with the applicant. I'm not saying there isn't one. There may be one, but I'm not aware of a strong basis for appealing. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, I have one more question about water. Water First North Florida, Jacksonville wastewater being shipped into the Swanee River Basin at 40 million gallons a day. And the people in North Florida Regional Planning, the commissioners up there are all over this. Madison County folks are leading the charge. Yeah. So there are a whole lot of these people up there that are trying to band together to resist this. And so I don't know if we're following how closely we are. And I heard you mention it. So you're going to do that next. Chair, would you like me to address that, the Water First North Florida project? Definitely. Okay. So this is a project. I mentioned it when I gave the update on the Lower Santa Fe and Itchitucknee minimum flows and levels, the MFL. So the MFL was just adopted. The governor signed it last week. And that recovery strategy really relies heavily on this project. This project is, you know, how the river and the springs will be restored. There's definitely a lot of questions with this project. It is just in very much the planning stages. And I've been to a lot of public meetings. I see that the public is upset and scared about this. There's a lot of misinformation. But there's also, there's definitely some issues. You know, one of them being, you know, timing. You know, are we already need recovery right now? And this is a project that will be done in 20 years. So, you know, how do we get recovery now? You know, and that's where we always were saying we wanted to see additional regulatory strategies and more water conservation in that MFL. And it just got whittled down, you know, every version. I think a big question is level of treatment. You know, so with that, you know, wastewater, you know, what level are they going to treat it to at the facility before it is discharged to a wetland? And I do know right now this came up at the Water Institute Symposium I was at a couple weeks ago. You know, they're doing some studies right now. And they're looking at things like PFAS, some of those forever chemicals, to see, you know, what kind of treatment are they getting? I also know JEA is, at the different project, is treating water to a drinking water standard and then injecting it. And that will be, you know, indirect potable reuse. So there's a lot happening with that project. I went to an open house last week in Live Oak and there was hundreds of people from the public there to get information. So I think, you know, as the MFL stands right now, this project is needed to get that recovery. But I think there's still a lot of questions to be asked about that project for it to happen, you know, in the best way possible if it's going to move forward and to not just wait for that project. Let's do other things. Let's do more conservation. Let's see if we can ratchet permits back because we're over allocated. Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up question on that? We've got Commissioner Prizzi and then Commissioner Alpert. Are you concluding? I've had only one other thing to say, but no, keep this conversation going because this is important. Do you – go ahead. You can – No, go ahead, Chenif. It's a follow-up to that. Thank you. Commissioner Alpert. You know, to me, this – I haven't seen Jacksonville go to the efforts that we have on water conservation. Yeah. And water conservation is directly linked to wastewater, as well as like I&I and all this other stuff, you know, that can affect wastewater quantity. And so – and pharmaceuticals – I mean, I have a lot of questions about this. There's a lot of – I know the working group, the Swanee River working group that's part of the Regional Planning Council that – where we beat up in Georgia is highly opposing this. But I feel like there is this middle place where we need to do something to solve both problems. And so I don't know. I – what is your general feeling of the project? I mean, I know you have questions, but do you feel like this is a good project if we get to the point where all of those harder questions are addressed? Yeah. Great question. Hard question. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think it could be a good project, you know, if the water is treated to a level that people feel comfortable with. I think you also need to – so part of this is that we're having to find water for growth, right? Right. And, you know, I always question, you know, why is it off the table that new growth, you know, can't have permanent irrigation? Right. Because let's say you're trying to find, you know, 50 million gallons a day for new growth. Well, if you ban irrigation, well, now you need 25. You just cut it in half. Exactly. Yeah. So I feel that it needs to be coupled with, you know, more water conservation in Jacksonville, in our area everywhere. And then, you know, definitely good filtration, thinking about where it's going to be sited. And then the costs are hard, too, to figure out where is all the money going to come from. Well, I'm asking this because there's a Regional Planning Council meeting on Thursday, and I expect it will be part of the discussion for sure. And, you know, if there's, you know, points like that I can make, I want to be able to make them. And I did see on that agenda, I think there's a resolution opposing it and saying to do desalination instead. It's my understanding from Sewanee, and I have not seen the study, but it's my understanding that, you know, Jacksonville going to desal wouldn't be enough. So the issue is, you know, that Jacksonville's use is kind of bleeding into our basin, right? Our water's moving that way, that even if they took their straw out and put it into the ocean, that that still wouldn't be enough for us to get the recovery. But I, that's just what I, you know, heard at the meeting I went to last week. I have not seen the data. It would help. Well, you know, but then we have the whole problem with the reject water from the salination plant and things like that. So there's, I mean, they're all, there's no good answer for any of it, except for me, reducing use at the outset. So anyway, thank you. I would, yeah, sorry for asking those questions. Okay. No, good question. You conclude? I just had one more thing to say. Sam went to Hall Chapel Methodist Church Sunday to congratulate the congregation there for 139 years of operation. And it was a lovely event. I just read a letter of congratulations, but 139 years. If you think back, that's 1887. And that's what they were talking about, the post office opening in Alachua in 1884. So that's, that's, that's an operating church now. That's it, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Prezio. Yeah, I guess I'm, I'm, I'm, I guess I'm interested to understand why staff isn't interested in pursuing an appeal or what, what your thought is on pursuing an appeal to this. I mean, it does feel like procedurally steps weren't followed, that it was quasi judicial, that we weren't made aware of that, that, that there's been evidence that's been brought forward by both residents and organizations such as Sierra Club that shows that there is a potential impact to water quality. And I guess I'm just interested to know if it got appealed, would it go to their commission then? Is that? Yeah, Mr. Chair, the appeal process would take it to their commission. And again, the appeal would be to not approve the modification of condition one. It doesn't deny the golf course. So the appeal, to win the appeal, we would then go back to it being Tower Hill golf course, which still, it's still a golf course. It is potentially going to have less users under that scenario. But, you know, I don't, it comes down to whether that challenging that aspect alone gets us what we're trying to accomplish, which is what we're also doing through collaboration with the owner. I don't know the basis, you know, some of the, is, you know, whether one of the, the members shouldn't have voted, that's one issue. Whether it was advertised as quasi judicial, that, that doesn't seem very strong in that scenario, but it may have a basis. Getting into the additional environmental issues associated with the name change to this other entity is a challenge, because we don't know what that size of that entity is. We don't have the skill set to say, well, five additional golfers are going to cause blank impacts. You know, from, from my understanding, you know, most golf courses have a standard water and water use process, which they'll follow and only modify that when they see impacts occurring. You have to relate that to the increased use of the facility that would then lead to them doing that. It may not change the water use at all. It could change, you know, fertilizer use, but I, I'm not an expert, you know, someone who could know that case by case. So there's a lot there to unpack, which I think would be challenging under this appeal. Um, I mean, it's up to the board, but, um, staff didn't, our initial thoughts were that there really wasn't enough there for us to really attack that issue. Considering we might be able to get the same results, um, or, or at least some kind of positive results with continued effort with the applicant. And I, and I hear that and I appreciate, and I think, I think one of the strong suits of your department is your ability to work with constituents and organizations and regulatory agencies and industry partners to get to yes. And I appreciate that. But I think in this instance, like we're talking about something where once again, procedurally, it seems like things aren't being done appropriately. And there's a lot of like, I don't want to call it obfuscation, but it feels very much like there's this sort of likes, it's like sneaky steps towards, you know, like going from a private public golf course. Okay. Now all of a sudden it's a public golf course. Okay. Well, maybe it's not a very public golf course, but it might be a very public golf course, but we don't know if it's a public golf course. And I just feel like appealing this makes a lot of sense because it puts it in the public's hands. Again, it gives, and it gives a chance for them to write that wrong of not having that procedure, those procedures followed the way that to the letter of the law, the way that they should have been with regards to the quasi judicial hearing and being able to present all of the evidence. And I, and having the elected officials held accountable for the decision on how land use is going to be determined in their community. So to me, it, I mean, that's my, that's my, I mean, for me, it's big decisions like this are delegated to the planning commission. And I would love for Alachua to change that because I think big decisions like this where the community is involved and the electeds are accountable directly to the community should be done by the elected officials. So for me, I've heard staffs reasoning for why we shouldn't appeal. And it makes a lot of sense from a staffing perspective. If it creates a situation where the city of Alachua looks at that policy and changes that policy to where those types of decisions are made at the commission level, to me, it's worth a thousand bucks and I would support it. I don't think it's going to change the ultimate outcome. the ultimate outcome and it would be from my perspective, I hope staff would say we're doing a friendly appeal because we understand what you all are doing and we don't think there'll be an environmental change, but it does give us the ability to ask our colleagues if they will look at involving the public in big decisions like this from the standpoint of, as opposed to delegating it to their planning commission. That's mine. So what does that look like? It looks like us appealing it. Madam Attorney? So, Mr. Chair, we would have to go back and look at the Alachua Code. But if we were appealing to a court, at this point we would be saying it's a quasi-judicial action and they did not give the due process they were supposed to give. And in that case, the court would say yea or nay, and if they say nay, they did not give the due process that the people were owed. It would just go back to the same board to do the hearing again. But the appeal wouldn't be to the court, the appeal would be to the city commission. That's why we need to look at the, we need to look at their code to see how that's set up. But I would presume that it works exactly the same way, that it would go back to the Planning and Zoning Board. In the case of the appeals that we've been talking about, we've been talking about the board has made a substantive decision based on the application of the code and comp plan. And we're saying that's wrong. And then it would go up to the city board to make a decision. We have to look at their code to see. I don't know that getting a due process, if we take a due process appeal, that we are going to get the city to substantively decide this particular condition. It would be up to the city to decide. It's how the city interprets its code. Based on their interpretation of the code. Based on their interpretation of the code, that's right. But the most you would get if it were the court is another hearing. It would at least put the electives on record as to how they view it and give them an opportunity to either change your code or keep your code. So, right. So, Mr. Chair, at this point I can't speak to the procedural issues. We can certainly go back and look at the due process, potential due process violations. I do have the right to file something without being directed by this board and bring it back to you. I think I have open direction that you want us to file what we can file and to use the money and the other resources you set aside to reach your goals. And at this point, if you want to do some kind of motion that asks us to go back and look at it, and if we think we have a due process issue that we would file an appeal with the city commission, then we can do that. Okay. But I don't know if we have that second moment. Okay. So, we've got a motion from Commissioner Wheeler and a second from Commissioner Prizia to refer to SAP to see if there's an opportunity for an administrative appeal. Thank you. Okay. Any? Mr. Chair, I was just going to add, the deadline I believe is April 8th. Yeah, so with this direction, that would give Sylvia basically the authority to do that if she found it prior to us meeting again. I guess I am interested to understand, did their application of extension of this from Tower Hills Golf Course to whatever it's called now, Tomoka Hills Golf Course, yeah, not include how it would change the use of, was that not required? Like how many people would now be utilizing the course, or? That was discussed at the hearing, and the applicant doesn't know the number that that would represent because they don't have the documents yet for that association. That was part of the concern and questions that were brought up, was how are we making this change without knowing what it consists of and how many people are involved. So, there was some discussion, but not knowing the true number of what that association size will be, they really couldn't really answer the question. Yeah, so I guess I'm interested in the procedural issues, but I am also interested in the fact that they're potentially opening a public golf course that would require a clubhouse, that would require parking, that would require all these things on karst topography that could impact water quality and impervious surface issues on top of the golf course impacts of a public course and how much water is used and how much fertilizer and chemicals might end up in Mill Creek, as well as the procedural issues. Like both are concerning to me, and if there wasn't good enough information on that, then it seems to me that we should be appealing and asking for that information. Because how can they make a determination that this is not a public, that this is an okay thing to do if they don't have that information? Yeah. That's one of the aspects that was discussed at the hearing. Okay, thank you. Was that the basis for the two members? Did we call if I remember? They gave basis, but yeah. All right, so we've got a motion and a second. We'll open it up for public comment for those that are here. Welcome. Ms. Lindberg. Sorry, Lindberg. Thank you for hearing my public comment earlier and taking this seriously. You are in charge of my water on the county well. I don't believe you meet again until April 7th. Maybe the clerk can correct me. And then if you were to vote again to do an appeal for the whole application, I don't know if that's enough time. So I don't know if it would be a suggestion to make a second motion or amend your motion to get that going. We've given the attorney the authority to move forward with this motion. Okay. My understanding was procedural. Is there also going to be one on the application as well? Oh. It sounds different. Mr. Chair, we can review it for substantive as well. And if we think there's a basis, that can certainly be part of the appeal. Okay. Thank you. Okay. When it came to answer your question about who's going to use it, they said it would be property owner association. But last year after they approved the golf course, they came back with a comp plan change and a rezone. It was denied because there was a lot of confusion. The board noticed some of this shell game going on. And at the time they mentioned 1,200 to 1,400 residences. And in the neighborhood meeting this past December, they're very happy to say they want mixed use. They want light yoga. So I even mentioned, I was like, well, if you have a gym, does everyone at the gym a property owner? So they're just doing their inch for a mile. And I see that because I study every document that comes through. And they have a very talented attorney as well. The, you know, we're just people. So thank you. And so it sounds like if an appeal is the object that we will do one that would go to commission, not just one that would go to. Correct. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Back to the board. Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. State C and Steve, thank you for on the fly. Adding that agenda item. Okay. Any other items for manager comment? Sure. Okay. That was a long. Do you have any other questions for staff though? No, I don't. Well, we'll see. We're about to do commission comment. Okay. They're sitting out here waiting. Yep. It's five o'clock. So give us another couple hours. I definitely have some for staff. Okay. So Mary Helen, you got any? No, I gave you one on my hand. Okay. You got any? And I have, you took care of them. Okay, good. Let's go to Anna and then Mary. Oh, Mary. That's because I need to come right up. Okay. And she said she does. So the 100, Northwest 122nd Street extension. Yes. I know all of us are devastated about the loss of the trees along 122nd Street. All of us have seen staff's report about the fact that there's not much we can do about it. What we, I had a little epiphany. I don't know if y'all remember, but a couple of years ago I remodeled my kitchen. Mm-hmm. And in my kitchen I used oak from trees that were hit by lightning and had to be cut down to build my kitchen cabinets with. And so it occurred to me that we're taking down these heritage oaks. And the reason that lumber was available, it was actually less expensive to have a mobile lumber miller come and cut that wood into planks than it was to actually haul it away. So I would like to propose that we look at saving some of this ancient oak wood and perhaps putting out a request for, like we did for the Sankofa statue or something like that, for reuse of that wood and maybe one of our do-si-do projects or maybe something out at the West End Park or something like that, something to honor the trees that we're taking down so that they're not just going to a landfill. And so I'd like your ideas about that. I've already spoken to staff about that and they think this is very doable. So I just wanted to... I'm not there yet, but I love that idea if they have to come down. I mean, if we can't take, if we have, you know, I don't know. I've looked, I've tried to look at it all the different ways. I really feel like this 50-foot easement that GRU requires is the biggest problem. Why don't we ask them to make an exception? We need to ask them to make an exception. I mean, I know that we've already been on this forever and I know that we've been having conversations with GRU forever. I know that it's already dragged on forever, but have we had a conversation with GRU about the possibility of an exception for this small footage, just the footage in front of those trees. I mean, it's five trees. They're big trees now. I know, but... I know. You know, it's a couple, it's, you know, for them it's a couple hundred, a couple thousand yards or something like that. A couple hundred yards. A couple hundred yards of right away that they give... Mr. Gavarrete, thank you for hanging out for us to talk about the trees. As our Public Works Director and Chief Engineer. Mr. Chair, Ramon Gavarrete, Public Works Director. We have had many conversations with GRU about allowing us to actually build into their 50-foot setback from their post. And the answer is no. For them, that's a very... It's a safety issue for them, for their crews and be able to work on that. So, I don't think you're gonna be able to get GRU, and I don't know if this is on because I can hardly hear myself. I don't think you're gonna get GRU to actually budge on that. Well, I guess I would ask that we at least write a chair letter to the GRU Governing Board asking them to consider giving us the leeway of the right-of-way in front of those trees so that we don't have to cut them down. I love that idea. Can I ask one more question that you might know the answer to? How does that particular easement requirement of GRUs compare to other utilities? And that's something I would like to know the answer to because I have worked with other utilities, and I don't believe that they are requiring those same safety requirements. They definitely aren't because the other engineers and consulting firms in our community consistently complain that we're the only one that has these crazy right-of-way requirements and it makes construction... Yeah, I was just being rhetorical. So, I feel like, you know, as part of that chair letter, if we can say, you know, here are the other five utilities in our county and here's what they require in a right-of-way, I think we might have a stronger, a more strongly worded letter. I just, you know, just one last try to... Ramon, do you want to comment on that? And then I'll give a comment. Chair and commissioners, again, staff is going to do whatever the board wants us to do. That's obvious. You all direct us to do. But you also need to know that we have a contractor on site. That's true. We already told them to stop on the trees. Right now it's not a critical path issue, but within a week or so it will be a critical path issue. And then you're also going to be looking at a claims of delays with a contract. So, please keep that in mind too, please. Okay. So, thank you, Ramon. So, in the email that Missy sent to us, I just want to read this paragraph. Although there is an existing lime rock access road to the corridor, GRU standards do not allow paved collector roads within 50 feet of their transmission poles. So, I like the motion because I would appeal to Ed Blarsky, I hope he's watching, and to the governing board that what we're asking for is a very small variance in front of five major heritage live oaks on South Point. I drove there this weekend. Those trees are as far over to the eastern side of the road as they can possibly be. And it would make GRU, at least in my mind, a big hero in this situation if they could agenda this and talk about it quickly. Their next meeting is April 8th. Will that mess up our... We can delay it a week. If they made an exception, I mean, that's a major story and a big win for GRU and the county commission and the South Point. My bigger question, so I would support, I'll support that chair letter. I think we got a second from Mary Helen, and it's all we can do at this point. My bigger question, though, is, and this is for Ramon, maybe it's for Jeff. Do we know why the developer of South Point didn't add trees to the buffer? Because what I remember when I voted no on this was that that was one of the things that they were supposed to do. And I just don't know if the developer did what they were supposed to do. And if not, is there anything we can ask the developer to do? Mr. Chair, those phases of South Point that were currently, you know, where the roadway is currently under construction were approved in the early 2000s. The wild one wasn't here, okay. So I'll have to look back. It was a low-density buffer. If I were to guess, and this was before my time, obviously, before our time. Mine too. It probably was such that when those lots were, you know, those trees were there, the vegetation was there, and just from a visual standpoint, I'd have to look and see if those landscape plans showed any vegetation in that buffer area. So as the second part of the motion, could we ask that staff go back and look at that and see if the developer was supposed to plant trees? Sure. And is the seconder's okay with the question. You okay with that, Mary Ellen? As the third part of the motion, if we do have to cut down any trees, can we save the lumber and do a project with it? Oh, yeah, I don't, yeah, I'm trying to save the trees. I think, great idea. Yeah, I just think we should just throw it on there just so we don't have to do anything. Why don't we do that at the next meeting because we'll know the answer. Yeah. Okay, we can do that. Let's not have a backup for the trees unless we can save them. Okay. All right, so can you check into that then, Jeff? Okay. All right, so we've got a two-part motion. Any for discussion? Anyone want to talk to this board about the question? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir? I don't know that, I would like Ramon to let us, if that's going to delay critical, we're going to have claims that we're going to have to pay out on that delay. Like I said earlier, Commissioner, Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity. Right now the contractor has been told not to take down those, I think it's about five to eight trees that are still standing. There's two at the north end, two at the south end, five in the middle. That's the five in the middle that we're talking about. Well, unfortunately, yeah, the five in the middle of the corridor. But once this becomes a critical path and the contractor starts getting delayed, most likely there could be claims of delays on the contractor. Those can get quite expensive. Who's the contractor? It's Watson. And they're getting a lot of work from the county right now, as I'm sure we can argue that with them. Can we ask them to hold off for a week? We've already asked them to hold off. Well, Ramon, with all due respect, this board is asking them. So if they are going to fine us, would you please report that back to this board? And I'll talk to Watson, to Doug, with Watson, and we'll see how long we can hold off on that. I mean, like I said, they are getting a lot of work from the county at this time. Yes, they are. So I'm sure we can talk to them and see what we can do. Not yet. We don't need a chair letter to Watson. If Watson's going to fine us, they can let us know. I really feel that Watson's going to work with the county. I hope they do. But, you know, everything has its limit. We cannot just stop the project for months. No, it's two weeks. Two weeks. They might be able to work on that. But if the answer from, if we do get an answer from GRU, and that's what we determined to, the delay might be more than two weeks. Then we'll have a discussion. Yeah. Oh, I see. If GRU says no, then that's the end of it. If they say yes, then we'll have another discussion with Watson. Or if they say nothing. What's that? Or if they say nothing. If they say nothing, right. Okay. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you, commissioners. No, we saved those trees in front of Harry's. Those big trees there. So, you know, there's a give and take in this community. I hope, yeah, we'll see what happens. That's all we can do at this point. Mary, do you have anything else? Oh, no. I just, you know. Okay. Anna, you got anything? Nope, it was the trees. Mr. Sheriff, I may. I'm sorry to come back. But just for the board to know, if the answer is yes, then there's also going to be more delays based on because then that's going to cause a redesign of the corridor of the roadway, possibly going back to submitting plans to the permitting agencies. So, I just want the board to know that. It's not just Watson, please hold off on this. You're also looking at delays in design and then also in construction later. At least then we would have a decision to make. Right now we don't have a decision to make. Okay. Okay. I see zero two Addy. Who is that? Okay. I don't see anything else. All right. Anything else from this board? All right. We stand adjourned. Thank you.